Alison Anderson’s words could describe a war zone in a land far away– maybe a scene from the brutal Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023. But Alison’s words describe events in our own backyard, a war-like zone at the U.S. southern border that most Americans will never experience.
“We’ve had just about every experience you can imagine,” Alison tells me in an interview. Alison, the wife of a U.S. Border Patrol agent of 16 years, has lived with her family on the Texas-Mexico border for almost a decade, first on a ranch near Big Bend National Park and then in Del Rio.
During the past few years, Alison has been chased by an illegal alien on the ranch and defended her small children multiple times from illegal aliens trying to break into her house. “It turned out two of those guys had violent criminal histories,” she says. “And one had prior felony charges of home invasion, residential theft, armed robbery.”
Alison has witnessed women and children abandoned by the cartels, beaten, and raped. She has seen dead bodies on her property–illegal aliens who succumbed to heat and terrain or who were murdered by coyotes or traveling companions. “There are properties in Quemado (Texas)… that see hundreds a day coming through their farms, destroying their crops, disrupting their lives, and threatening their families,” she says.
Out of the ten million illegal aliens encountered by Border Patrol since President Joe Biden took office, Texas has been burdened with almost half at 4.9 million. Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith estimates Border Patrol only catches about 20% of illegal crossers –the rest are “gottaways.” Statistics recently reveal that 1.6 million known gottaways were recorded under Biden’s administration so far, more than in both the Trump and Obama administrations combined.
Illegal aliens cross the Rio Grande River near the ranch where Alison’s family lived, then traverse rugged terrain, canyons, and ravines, following trails to Highway 90 to “load out” in cars to be taken into the interior of the U.S. But on the way, they look for houses that are “opportunities” to get help or to commit crimes.
“We were tucked down inside a canyon…” Alison explains, “When the wind would blow, you could smell the groups, it’s a horrific smell. And this was my first warning sign … I could tell whether they were close or far away based on how strong the smell was.”
Once, Alison was outside doing target practice and smelled a group close by. “I figured the sound of gun fire would push them away from the house,” she says, “but I saw a dark spot up on a rock wall, on a hill about 30 yards out, covered by brush. I squinted to see what it was … it was a man, who gave me (a) slow wave! My heart sank – I’ve got two little ones sleeping inside. It’s dusk. Before I can fully process what’s happening, he takes off running, coming down the hill (toward me) and disappears into the brush…and I’m thinking ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! My brain was trying to process the danger – how to get to my kids – And I ran.”
As Alison ran toward the house, the man ran toward her. “We’re about 15 feet apart and we make dead-eye contact, and he grins at me like ‘I got you.’… That was a pivotal moment. I realized I was prey.”
Alison sprinted toward the house to call the Border Patrol station as fast as she could, “hitting the buttons a thousand times!” and then, “I turn around and the man is coming up my front gate. I drop everything, pull my firearm, swing that door open and head out on that porch and yell “You STOP!” The Border Patrol supervisor was on the phone and heard the entire thing. The guy finally backed up …. but as I hung up the phone, he comes back (toward the house.) So I went back out and fired a round over the top of his head.”
Border Patrol tracked the man’s footprints and found he had walked all over the Anderson’s property while Alison and her girls were home alone. Alison says, “They tracked him for a couple hours, but he wasn’t caught. I was terrified he would come back and cause harm to me and the girls. That’s when I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”
Alison and her family lived on the ranch until Biden’s open border policies forced their move to Del Rio. “I had so many encounters…,” Alison says, “the dangers were escalating … the amount of traffic we had in groups coming to the house, looking in my daughters’ windows at night, trying to break in, camping on our property … groups that had been in the brush two days or longer…our house looked like an opportunity. I had a target on my back.”
But in the border town of Del Rio, Alison still deals with border chaos, like confronting smugglers on her property and a murder committed behind her house (smuggling related) in September 2023. “We have an overwhelming number of women, of families, experiencing (crises like) this. I’m glad we have a social network to (talk) about our experiences and how it affects our kids. We lean on each other, because people don’t understand.” Alison continues, “We feel like prey and look like victims in our own homes, where we are supposed to be safest, feel safest.”
Border residents say their stories are dismissed and ignored by politicians and media for political gain, and by an American public that is uninformed and complacent. “Americans don’t know…they have no idea. There’s a huge lack of interest because it doesn’t impact their daily lives.” Alison confides.
About border residents’ frustration, she says, “It’s the inaction – I’ve been to the capital in Austin, I’ve preached to (federal) legislators on border security forums, I’ve met the governor personally. I’ve talked to people who can make change happen. And it’s so maddening…why is it okay for our top official to ignore the law and there be no consequences? Border security, national security, should be at the top of the list.”
There is a war-like zone on our southern border that will only get worse if Biden is reelected. But no American citizen should ever have to live this way.
“We have border burnout—border PTSD.” Alison finishes. “We’re tired of sharing and reliving our stories over and over with elected officials, legislators, and politicians. We take pictures with them, we open our hearts to them, then they leave and there is absolutely no action ever.” She pauses to compose herself. “But we keep hoping –you never know who you’ll run into that can actually make a difference.”
