A Texas rancher told reporters this week that he is open to the idea of allowing Texas to construct a border wall on his property.
Dr. Gary Schwarz, an oral surgeon, owns La Perla, a deer hunting and bass fishing ranch in the Rio Grande Valley. He also owns a strip of land that goes to the Rio Grande, where he gets water for his ranch.
According to Border Report, the Texas Facilities Commission hired a company that began construction of a border wall in Zapata County, where Schwarz lives. The population is about 14,000, the outlet noted (via Border Report):
About a week ago, Schwarz, 71, says he received a contract offer from the state for his riverfront land, which he is mulling over.
“This is an engineering marvel. It’s beautiful,” Schwarz said Sunday as he took Border Report on a tour of the border wall construction site.
Schwarz told the outlet that his ranch house was broken into about a year ago, and his adult son was attacked by individuals in a group of illegal aliens. Not to mention, his fence has sustained lots of damage from the illegal aliens.
“Our problems have been a lot of problems at night where they’re crossing our fences and they’re either cutting our fences and we lose our valuable animals or crawl over them and just literally so many people crawling over and they knock your fences down. That’s a big problem,” he said.
Reportedly, Schwarz’s neighbor to the north has allowed the state to construct 30-foot-tall metal bollards through his riverfront property. Another rancher north of this one did so as well.
“It really makes me proud of the State of Texas Gov. Abbott and the work they’re doing here,” Schwarz said.
However, Schwarz expressed that he has concerns about the wall through his border property. He wants the state to guarantee that he will continue to have access to his water pump and water rights in the Rio Grande and wants to continue to be able to take birding tours south of the wall to the river.
“As an American, as a Texan, as a citizen of our country, it’s essential. As a businessman, I’ve got things that it could really mess up,” Schwarz said. “It’s my only source of water, my river pump for 15,000 acres of land — 3,000 of my own, eight other owners owning the rest. And we need that water.”
“I do Audubon tours on the river. And that’s a big part of my business model. And so if we can solve those issues, I want to have this wall,” Schwarz added. “And if I don’t agree to it, there’s going to be a hole in the wall.”
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