We are down in the Río Grande Valley for what is billed as a monumental shift in our country’s strategy for handling the people who migrate to our southern border. Title 42 goes away at 11:59 tonight, and some new rules that weaponize the section of law known as Title 8 go into effect.

On the face of it, the change may be characterized as a kind of harshness being formalized, replacing a more casual kind of disincentivizing of migration, or more bluntly: it is more cruel. Cruelty is what happens when, rather than deal with the inequalities of wealth and opportunity on this planet in a constructive, equitable way, we choose to gird our loins, build walls, and take up arms.

Yesterday, I watched people as they swam across the river to the opposite bank. I watched with people who were trying to make their own choices. A woman I spoke with described her own dilemma as a choice between staying in the encampment to wait for an appointment to plead their case, gesturing to the garbage strewn settlement, with little sanitation, little food, tarps for shelter, or, as she waved her hand toward the river, to cross, only to risk being sent back to the country they are fleeing in desperation.

How the changeover in policy would play into that decision, I am not sure, and neither does it seem foremost in minds there. I hope to learn more, as deportation, with lasting penalties, replaces mere expulsion under the new regime.

Today, we looked for the other side, on the distant bank of yesterday. Where do they go when they climb up after the swim across? We found it, down by the college: some stations for “processing,” down a road that follows the river on the US side. And it turned out that today a special show was planned by the National Guard, authorized by the governor, new troops, Quick Response, to defend the homeland against wet women, men, and children. The troops carried riot shields, and the brigadier general, his sidearm holstered, promised the gathered press that we would be very proud of the military response being mounted. We were assured that these troops had the power to interfere with any criminal acts, not just to provide logistical support.

I will return to Matamoros in an hour or so, to go again to watch as families push off into the river. I need to see it again, and to see if yesterday’s rain has swelled the river, strengthening the current as it runs to the sea.

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