Starr County, Texas: Turned red, then dropped off at border control center

Starr County, Texas, elected a Republican majority this month — for the first time in 100 years.

Home to about 75,000 residents in about 1,200 square miles, it has a relatively small footprint, in a country that is all but glorified for its size.

But it has made an outsized impression on national politics. Even after flipping history from blue to red, a century in the making, it continues to garner the title.

Last week, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham offered 1,402 acres of Starr County to facilitate President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.

In a letter to Trump dated Nov. 19, Buckingham said he offered the land, which sits on the Mexican border, “to build a deportation facility.”

They also proposed alternative uses, including as a site for a detention center.

“Now it’s basically farmland, it’s so flat, it’s easy to build on. We could easily build a detention center there – a place where these criminals are held when they get out of our country,” Buckingham said in a recent interview with Fox. News.

The land, which Buckingham declared to be state property by 2023, adds to other parcels previously owned by the Texas General Land Office, bringing the southern border area under Starr County’s control to 4,000.

ABC News’ Mireya Villarreal visited Starr County to ask residents what issues and values ​​most influenced them to vote for Republican candidates this year, rather than support the century-long blue line.

“The economy is just driving, I think, everybody’s crazy,” said Becky Garza, owner of Texas Cafe in Rio Grande City, Starr County’s largest city.

He explained that he used to complain about buying a box of eggs for $10, now it’s $20.

“If things don’t get better, I might have to cut staff, cut hours, or I’ll start by cutting hours and work, maybe cut back, maybe cut back on the menu, you know, keep it open, you know, because I don’t want to losing customers,” Garza said.

And he doesn’t think he’s the only one making tough decisions, he told ABC News.

Jaime Escobar, the mayor of neighboring Rome, another city in Starr County, agrees. He suggests that residents are more influenced by the local economy than they say in Washington, DC

“We don’t want to be considered just a poor community because we are culturally rich,” he told ABC News. “We’re proud of our Mexican-American heritage, but we don’t — we don’t want to depend solely on the government.”

But with DC invited into the background, it’s sure to bring the topic of migration and deportation to the fore — even for those who didn’t prioritize the issue during the election cycle.

Asked how people might respond to the detention facility in nearby Starr County, Escobar said, “People don’t want their families broken. That’s what they want.”

“But at the same time,” he added, “I hope Trump and his administration do the right thing and focus on the criminal element first, and then see how it is now, we will see how the policy can be implemented in a better way.”

Buckingham, on the other hand, believes that “people living at the border feel left out by the open border policy.”

He told ABC News, “They feel they are directly harming their community, their safety and their well-being.”

In the same interview this week with ABC News, Buckingham also said he would “absolutely” offer more of Texas, as he did in Starr County.

“I have 13 million hectares. If one of them can help in this process, we would like to discuss that,” said Buckingham.

Trump has said he will carry out his mass deportation plan – his top campaign promise – by declaring a national emergency and using “military assets” to deport migrants currently living in the US without legal permission.

He supports his commitment with the selection of some immigration hard-liners to join his administration, including South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for homeland security secretary and former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan as “border czar.” Both options require Senate confirmation.

But with an estimated 11 million people believed to be living in the U.S. without legal immigration status, those promises raise questions about their feasibility and cost.

Removal can cost billions of dollars a year, according to estimates from the American Immigration Council.

And while Republican-friendly areas of Texas may have to support the effort, other southern border states, such as Arizona and California, have expressed their displeasure.

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs told ABC News Live last week that she will not use the state police or the National Guard to help with mass deportations.

“We will not participate in wrongful efforts that destroy our community,” he said.