This election is about us, about our values, and about our futures. One of the major candidates, Republican Donald Trump, began his campaign by targeting us when he maligned Mexican immigrants as criminals and promised construction of a hideous wall between the United States and Mexico.
We who live along the border recognized the hateful language for what it was. But would we fight back with our most powerful weapon, our ballots?
The answer so far has been a resounding yes. A region long plagued by low turnout saw a historic surge during early voting, shattering all previous records.
El Paso, the largest county on the Texas-Mexico border, saw a 57 percent increase in early voting, with almost 150,000 people casting ballots. The increase in Cameron County (Brownsville) was 41 percent. And turnout in Hidalgo County (McAllen) grew by 35 percent.
