Ramsey Cantú: Maverick County Judge and Former Mayor

EAGLE PASS, Texas — Ramsey English Cantú is the Maverick County Judge and the former Mayor of Eagle Pass. He has been in the position of County Judge for the past 15 months, was the mayor for 10 years prior and before that was a member of the city council.  

“As a Democrat, I am not in agreement with everything that Governor Abbott does, but at the end of the day if that message would not have been sent, we still would have had that problem,” Judge Cantú said.

Cantú was serving as mayor in 2019 when Eagle Pass experienced one of the first surges of immigration. Around 3,000 Hondurans traveled across the border at that time, according to Judge Cantú. He worked closely with the mayor of Piedras Negras, the city across the border in Mexico, to resolve this issue and keep a sense of control.

“During that time period, however, that was probably the one only time when I called the Governor’s office in a little bit of a disarray,” Cantú said.

At the time Governor Abbott’s solution to a surge of new migrants was to stop them at the state line and bus them directly to Piedras Negras. He did not want those immigrants to come through the state. They were placed in a large warehouse where they were provided with food, shelter, wi-fi and immigration permits to work in Mexico while they waited to go through the steps necessary to seek asylum legally in the United States, according to Judge Cantú.

This was back in 2019, just a few months ago Eagle Pass had seen around 800 to 1,000 migrants crossing per day. Now the numbers have dropped to around 180 to 200 per day, as always these are only the numbers that that have been documented by border patrol, many go unreported.

When a migrant crosses the border illegally, it becomes much more difficult for them to be granted asylum in an immigration court. The time between being caught and going to see an immigration judge can take years. During this waiting period, if they have provided the necessary documentation, they can apply for a work permit and work legally in the United States. But, if a migrant crosses the bridge legally there is a better chance that they will be granted asylum, according to Judge Cantú.

Judge Cantú had spoken to a migrant woman who left her home in Venezuela for a chance at life in the United States. It took her three months to make the journey to the States and she had paid for help from three different people along the way.

“I am an individual who understands that this country is built on immigrants, it has been built on that for years, but we have to go through a legal process,” Judge Cantú said. “If we don’t follow that legal process, it causes a greater determent to the nation.”

Judge Cantú reports that Maverick County has had an increase in crime and burglaries. The county has a budget of about $29 million. Judge Cantú expressed how they have had to provide more funding for security and patrolling for migrants, leaving the general public with ought as much security as they have had in the past.

“For all of these years, going onto my 19^th year in public service, officials, congress, everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it,” Judge Cantú said.

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This project was created through a journalism class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies Department. This work was made possible through the support of MPC Endowment Ltd., the philanthropic affiliate of the Milwaukee Press Club.