In 2021, Martin Wall bought the Texas land his family had leased for 100 years. Over the next four years, he faced a relentless battle to protect it, along with his home, family, and livelihood.
Wall’s family has ranched the same land in Eagle Pass, Texas, for three generations, so when the land was available for sale, he made the decision to keep the property in his family.
“My mother was raised here,” he told IW Features. “It’s hell to a lot of people, but it’s heaven to me. It’s who I am.”
But that land soon became the frontline for America’s border crisis.
“It was like a light switch the day [President Joe Biden] went into office,” said Wall.
Border Patrol allegedly was told to abandon the Vega Verde Road, which runs along the Rio Grande, and hundreds of thousands of people began pouring across the border—right through Wall’s ranch.
At first, Wall said he didn’t let Border Patrol on his property. But the influx of migrants got worse every day.
Hundreds of illegal immigrants would pass near his home where he lives with his wife, son, and daughter, he said. The railroad heading north runs through his ranch, and they would wait to board the train after it had cleared U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s X-ray machine.
These immigrants weren’t looking for jobs or work, according to Martin. None of them asked if he would hire them. Instead, they wanted welfare payments, he said. He saw able-bodied men and even some dressed in luxury goods.
Many of the immigrants were fighting-age males—those who were able to survive the long trip to America. But others were children, left to fend for themselves or caught in human trafficking operations.
“You see the ugly side of humanity,” Wall shared. “I did not want to believe it.”
Wall said that the children’s faces were blank, hope long gone from their eyes after everything they had experienced.
Migrants from all over the world were on Martin’s doorstep: Somalians, Congolese, Chinese, Russians, and more. None seemed to realize or care that they were trespassing on his property. In fact, they frequently vandalized it, he said.
Each day, he had to repair cut fences, and as people passed over his land, they would break windows and leave their feces on his porch steps.
“That’s just hate,” said Wall, arguing there was no rational reason for people to attack his property.
Everything he saw made him wary for his family’s safety. One day, for example, he and his son were out in the field irrigating when a rough-looking, tattooed man approached and asked for water.
Wall said he knew that offering the migrant water would only encourage more people to cross his land and ask for the same, further endangering Wall and his family. So, concerned for his and his son’s safety, Wall told the man no.
When his son asked to give the man water, Wall gave up and let his son pass along a bottle. Then, Wall said, the man turned around and came toward him.
“You make sure you take care of your son,” the man said, according to Wall.
The words sounded like a threat at first. But as the man continued speaking, Wall realized they were a warning.
The migrant had come from Belize and told Wall that the Belizean prisons were being emptied. Those prisoners were coming to America, over the open border, and to Wall’s ranch, he said.
Several times, Wall said he found illegal immigrants trespassing inside his home. With a pistol in hand, he confronted the people. But there was nothing he could do.
“A life means nothing [to them],” he told IW Features, explaining they were not afraid of any threat posed to their own lives.
One night, he prepared to confront approximately 30 people who had broken into his barn, only for his wife to point out that he was simply outnumbered.
“My wife didn’t feel safe in her own home,” he shared. “It was like the Wild West.”
And all the while, Wall had to work to keep his farm running. Because of the migrants’ vandalism, Wall said he had to repair fences every day. It sidelined his life and affected his business. Moreover, Wall told IW Features he couldn’t sleep at night and developed high blood pressure from the strain it put on his life and livelihood.
“It didn’t break me, but it sure crippled me pretty good,” he said. “I’m going to get through it—because I have no other choice.”
Still, abandoning his land was never an option.
In January 2024, 60 Members of Congress came to his land to see the border crisis firsthand, and they also asked him why he wouldn’t just cut his losses and leave. Wall told them that he shouldn’t be forced to leave his home.
“I love my country. I love where I live. It was never even in the cards,” he said.
Wall wasn’t the only one frustrated with the situation. “The [Border Patrol] agents were pissed,” he said.
Under orders from the Biden administration, U.S. Border Patrol implemented catch-and-release as its standard border policy, preventing agents from effectively deterring migrants or tracking them down.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, launched in March 2021, helped somewhat. As part of the operation, Texas law enforcement was empowered to step up and catch illegal border crossers. This pushed the crisis farther west to the Arizona-Mexico border and away from Wall’s land, he explained. But the damage had already been done.
For some politicians, the border crisis was an out-of-sight, out-of-mind issue. But for Americans who saw the crisis up close for years, the problem was impossible to ignore. In fact, when a journalist came and saw Wall’s story for himself, the reporter told Wall that he changed his mind on open borders.
“You don’t have to see where I’m coming from,” Wall said. “[But] don’t ever look down on somebody for not seeing it the way you see it.”
Thankfully, the past several months have brought the border crisis to a nearly complete halt. When the Trump administration took office in January, bringing tighter border policies, illegal immigration took a nosedive. Wall said he went from seeing hundreds of people trespass on his property each day to none.
“Done, over, stopped—that fast,” he said.
Today, Wall is left to repair the damage. Replacing his fences and repairing everything that was broken will not be cheap or easy, but he sees the road ahead as hopeful.
“God bless Donald Trump,” he said. “God bless Greg Abbott. God bless America, too.”
