Rio Grande Valley retailers are seeing sales declines of up to 30 percent, Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez said. He attributed the drop to ongoing enforcement operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and federal reductions to safety-net programs such as SNAP. Cortez spoke to the RGG Business Journal after a joint press briefing at the Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen on Wednesday, October 28. He described the situation as a "state of emergency" for the border region.
Cortez said some retailers are down 30 percent but did not name them. He said people are leaving the area because of immigration concerns and have less money to spend. He cited the latest statistics he received, which he said show 31 percent of county residents receive some form of government subsidy. Cortez argued that government money spent locally circulates through the economy, so cuts affect more than the people who receive benefits.
Cortez criticized broad federal budget cuts aimed at curbing program abuse. He said the government should remove waste rather than cut funding, and that the current approach harms innocent families.