El Paso is beautiful, even though we look like just a pile of rocks: Letters to the Editor
El Paso is beautiful, even though we look like just a pile of rocks
I am a seventh grader at Wiggs Middle School. I am a huge environmental person and I need your help. El Paso is a border city and we have recently gone viral for thousands of immigrants crossing over the border. However, El Paso is beautiful, even though we look like just a pile of rocks and dirt.
Not only do we live in the Chihuahuan desert, but there is a little secret paradise called Rio Bosque, a wetland on the East Side of El Paso. I call it a paradise because it holds so many beautiful animals including painted buntings, larkspurs, roadrunners, hawks, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, snakes and most importantly burrowing owls.
Burrowing owls are endangered in Canada because of habitat loss, so the University of Texas at El Paso helped build little homes for them in the man-made Rio Bosque wetland. Since then, many owls migrate to El Paso to breed and some even stay. Each year there is a volunteer opportunity to tag the owl fledglings. Last year, I volunteered, and it was the best experience. Being surrounded by nature and animals was peaceful and beautiful. The owl babies are also cute, but they bite really hard.
Soon, Rio Bosque and the owls will be gone. Texas is deciding to build a highway by the wetland. They want to build the highway to clear port of entry congestion, but research shows that the highway will be congested after 5-10 years, and many animals will die trying to cross it and this highway will also create more pollution, exactly what we don't want. Help me stop this project, for the owls, for our community for the Earth.
Celeste Velasco
West El Paso
SB4 is a good thing for Texas
In a guest column on April 21st, Mario Carrillo wrote opposing Gov. Greg Abbott's Texas Senate Bill SB4. Carrillo attended Berkley University where progressive theories are taught. He Is also the campaign director for America's Voice based in San Francisco, a very Democratic and progressive city.
SB4 authorizes Texas state police to arrest immigrants crossing illegally from Mexico into the United States. Abbott said that the federal government is not enforcing federal immigration laws. That is causing lawlessness, crime, drugs pouring in and inflation.
Any benefits the immigrants are getting should be going to the homeless, veterans, disabled, needy families and children. Abbott also said the number one priority and duty of the president is to protect the American public and our country from illegal immigration. If the president will not protect us, then Abbott will.
The progressives ignore the Constitution, federal laws, state laws, which is changing our beloved America into a totalitarian government.
SB4 is a good thing for Texas, for all states and for our country. SB4 will probably be decided by the Supreme Court. We are at a tipping point folks and how we vote this coming November will determine the fate of our country and the fate for all of us.
Samuel Mancillas
West Central El Paso
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso is beautiful, help preserve Rio Bosque: Letters to the Editor
