The Region That Flipped Now Faces the Cost
When Donald Trump flipped the traditionally Democratic Rio Grande Valley in 2024, he disrupted a region that had long voted blue. Many South Texas voters backed his promises on immigration and border security. Now they're watching his deportation agenda affect their workforce, and the political ground is shifting beneath him.
The scale of what's coming is large. Immigration courts face a backlog of 3.6 million cases, according to EOIR data provided to Axios. Trump's new immigration chief, retired Marine Corps Col. Daren Margolin, is racing to clear them. Between Trump's inauguration and January 30, 2026, the case backlog fell by 341,006. Most of those cases end in removal orders. Margolin believes between 25 to 30 million undocumented immigrants live in the country—roughly double official estimates from the Department of Homeland Security and Pew Research Center, which put the figure around 10 to 12 million. He is restructuring the court system and pushing to limit the appeals process on removal orders, which would increase the number of people eligible for swift deportation.
Trump fired 55 immigration judges in 2025. Another 80 retired as part of the purge of the immigration court system. He is recruiting new immigration judges after a media campaign that asked people to apply. He has hired roughly 50 military attorneys to expand the court system. The first wave of new judges starts at the end of February.
Where Policy Meets Reality
In South Texas, this isn't abstract. Key local industries rely heavily on immigrant labor now targeted by stepped-up enforcement. Farms, construction sites, restaurants, and small businesses in the region are facing significant workforce shortages as ICE operations intensify. The communities that voted for Trump are now experiencing the effects of his deportation policies.
On Monday, Republican Senator John Cornyn warned that a Democrat winning his 2026 Senate seat would be "the first crack in the red wall." He's watching his own state's competitive dynamics shift.
The Human Cost
The human toll is also mounting. Joshua Orta, a witness to the fatal shooting of Texas driver Ruben Ray Martinez by a federal immigration agent in March 2025, died in a car crash in San Antonio on Saturday, February 21, 2026. Orta had given a detailed statement to lawyers disputing the government's account of the shooting. His death removes a witness whose account challenged the government's version of the shooting.
For South Texas voters, the choice they made in 2024 is colliding with the reality of implementation. Many who backed Trump's tough border stance are now confronting a court system built for speed, workforce anxiety, and economic strains in the region. The political impact of Trump's immigration policies in South Texas will depend on whether economic benefits materialize faster than workforce disruptions occur.
