Hill Country Chronicle

The sheriff of Val Verde County in Texas sounded off on the border crisis, saying “people need to get their heads out of the sand and pay attention because this has been going on for two years now and it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.”

“In the last couple of years in 2021 we had an increase of individuals coming across to 260K, and that number was more than the previous 9 years combined,” Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez said on the immigration crisis. “Last year, it was 480K in 2022 in the Del Rio Sector.” 

Martinez’s remarks came on a recent episode of "The Jenny Beth Show" podcast. He told host Jenny Beth Martin that his community is not able to handle the influx of immigrants. 

“Del Rio is not equipped to house people. We don’t have a transportation system … we are not set up with a shelter. ... They are not coming throughout the world to stay in Del Rio, Texas, they are moving throughout the United States,” Martinez said during the podcast. “Basically, the border is the first line of defense, after you go beyond that you can run anywhere you want to in the country.” 

“These people are not coming to stay at the border,” he continued. “They didn’t travel thousands and thousands of miles to stay on the border, they are going to go someplace else.”

According to the Sheriff's Association of Texas, Martinez is the sheriff of Val Verde County in Texas, a position he's held for the past 14 years. Val Verde County has a population of less than 50,000 and 109 miles of border.

Jenny Beth Martin is the honorary chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action, which is headquartered in Cherokee County, Ga. She was named one of 2010’s “Most Influential Leaders” by Time Magazine. She attended Reinhardt University in Wales, Ga., as well as the University of Georgia.