BROOKS COUNTY, Texas (RFD NEWS) — After years of dealing with heavy migrant traffic and costly property damage, a South Texas rancher says life along the border is finally getting easier. RFD NEWS correspondent Frank McCaffrey recently spoke with Dr. Mike Vickers, a rancher in Brooks County, Texas, who says the changes over the past year have been dramatic.
Over the past five years, RFD NEWS has covered the impact of former President Biden’s border policies on the ranching community extensively. Now, ranchers in parts of South Texas report a noticeable decline in illegal crossings and trespassing.
However, the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement policies have drawn sharp criticism from political opponents, including California Governor Gavin Newsom.
“How can the state respond to these wrongful detentions and hold ICE accountable?” a reporter asked Gov. Newsom.
“The need to be held accountable,” Newsom said. “To your question, we rely on the court system. We rely on the Constitution of the United States of America.”
However, ranchers in areas like Brooks County, Texas, say they are seeing significant improvements tied to Trump-era border policies.
“We’re not seeing hardly any traffic at all,” Vickers said. “Probably about two weeks ago, the Border Patrol apprehended about, I think there were exactly six Asians, Chinese, that came through my place, and they caught them over at this rest area right there on the highway right across from my ranch. But other than that, since Trump has taken office, we’ve seen nothing. It’s almost getting lonely out there.”
Brooks County is home to the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint, a major interior checkpoint along U.S. Highway 281, roughly 65 to 80 miles north of the U.S.–Mexico border. The area falls within the Rio Grande Valley Sector, historically one of the busiest corridors for illegal immigration and smuggling.
The contrast from previous years is stark. In December 2024, U.S. Border Patrol reported approximately 47,330 encounters or apprehensions between ports of entry. By December 2025, that number had dropped to around 6,478 — a decline of roughly 86 percent.
Dr. Vickers says he and volunteer groups have seen firsthand evidence of that reduction.
“We had a border op back in January after Trump took office, and we saw nothing for miles around that checkpoint,” Vickers said. “There is still some traffic coming through Jim Hogg County and maybe Zapata County. We had an operation down there, and we had some camera hits where some backpackers were carrying bundles, and that will probably never stop.”
Water barrels placed years ago on ranches with heavy migrant traffic remain scattered across Brooks County ranchland. Many were installed and maintained by the South Texas Human Rights Center to help prevent dehydration along known migrant routes.
For years, Vickers says he regularly encountered migrants who had been misled about the length and danger of their journey.
“The dead bodies showing up, and that’s a real big concern because they just walk off and leave them,” Vickers said. “We have found a lot of people that are on the edge of death, that are so cramped up and sick and dehydrated that we have to get them haloflighted, either to Corpus Christi or sent to a hospital in Kingsville and Alice, and this is something that’s really disturbing.”
Property damage has also eased. Smugglers once caused extensive destruction by cutting and crashing through ranch fences during bailouts.
“Now you may recall us doing stories about destroyed fences here on South Texas ranches as the smugglers were doing bailouts over top of them,” McCaffrey said. “Well, they’ve been largely restored. However, the damage that was done had a large price tag.”
In 2024, Texas rolled out a compensation program for ranchers impacted by illegal immigration. The program includes millions of dollars to help cover repairs to fences, gates, and barns.
“No more fence damage,” Vickers said, adding, “I probably sustained maybe close to $100,000 in fence damage.”
It’s a striking change from video RFD-TV captured in 2021, when crossings and damage were at their peak.
Frank McCaffrey, reporting for RFD-TV.
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