It was just before dawn in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, and worshipers were arriving for Friday Mass at the small La Lomita Catholic Chapel.
The white building, which has been there since the times of the American Civil War, stands amid the surrounding undergrowth and is about 180 meters from the Rio Grande itself.
As the cars arrived at the chapel, the sound of Father Roy Snipes' dogs barking announced their arrival. He has been the local priest for nearly half a century and is known locally as the Cowboy Father.
"I'm not sure why I chose that nickname, but it's cool," he said.
In fact, it's quite obvious why. Snipes wears a Stetson hat in place of the more traditional priest's hat. And, moments later, the chapel was filled with the sound of a song by Roy Rogers, the singer and actor known as the King of Cowboys.
During the first Trump administration, Snipes resisted plans to expropriate the chapel's land to build the president's border wall. Eight years later, at the Friday morning celebration, he focused his brief sermon on the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"There is no justification for detaining, incarcerating and deporting poor, good people who are our neighbors," Snipes told the congregation of about 30 mostly Hispanic worshipers.
Credit, Getty Images
According to data obtained by the Deportation Data Project, Texas accounted for approximately one-third of all ICE arrests nationwide as of July 2026, a greater share than any other state.
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"They said they would search for, capture, detain and deport the worst of the worst," Father Snipes said in his sermon. "Well, we're on the border, and the cartel is the worst of the worst. So we thought, this is a good thing."
"But it turns out that almost every day you hear about some poor guy going to work, and they stop him, detain him and start a big mess."
After the service, two members of the congregation stopped to talk. "We are educators and we have a lot of students who need to go back to school because their parents are being deported," one of them said.
"The cruelty we're seeing... I think it's changing the situation, at least I hope so," their friend added.
Reversing the political situation is what Democrats hope to achieve in Texas in the midterm elections on November 3. But this won't be easy.
This stretch of the Rio Grande was once one of the busiest crossing points on the US-Mexico border. Under former President Joe Biden's administration, hundreds of thousands of migrants passed through here, with more than two and a half million arrests recorded in a single year.
Trump promised to end these illegal crossings during his 2024 election campaign, and he has largely kept his promise.
Border crossings are now at their lowest level in decades. And it was that promise that, in part, drove Trump's surprisingly high level of support in the state, winning about 55% of the Hispanic vote in Texas alone — a record for a Republican presidential candidate.
Javier Villalobos is the Republican mayor of McAllen, one of the largest cities in the Rio Grande Valley. He predicts difficulties for Republicans this time, but recognizes the Trump administration's role in containing the problem at the border.
"I remember publishing a video... thanking the government for securing the border immediately. That was great," he said. "And I think, in general, most people are okay with deporting criminals, violent people, or people who really aren't productive."
But if you start deporting productive, law-abiding people, that's the problem, he added.
Recent polls suggest that much of Trump's support among Hispanic voters has declined since 2024. Surveys since late summer indicate that a majority of Texas Hispanic voters disapprove of the president. They also suggest that Hispanic voters are favoring Democrats over Republicans by a significant margin.
“When I voted for President Trump, I voted for him because we saw an increase in immigration under the Biden administration,” said Mario Guerrero, a young Mexican-American businessman who leads the South Texas Home Builders Association. This needed to be resolved, he said.
"We thought we were right to vote for Trump and that he would do his best to resolve the border crisis."
"And I think to myself: We weren't really told what lengths they were willing to go to to prove a point," he added, before mentioning recent shootings involving ICE agents in U.S. cities.
Guerrero serves as a reminder that for many who live and work near the U.S.-Mexico border, security and immigration enforcement are two separate issues.
A voter here might support border security and stopping illegal crossings, but oppose the actions of ICE and the way the government is enforcing its crackdown on illegal immigration.
Guerrero has voted for Trump three times in a row, but plans to vote Democratic in November, in part due to her discomfort with this crackdown.
"I know a man who...last year, he had 35 employees working for him every day," he said. "Just now, two days ago, he told me he'd be lucky if he could get four or six of them to show up for work."
Although Guerrero plans to vote Democratic, he describes himself as neither a Democrat nor a Republican. And that, according to Mike Madrid, a leading Republican consultant and expert on Hispanic voters, is key to understanding the country's largest ethnic voting group.
"Latinos are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to identify as independents than as Republicans or Democrats," he said.
It was partly the belief that Hispanic voters were permanently shifting to the Republican Party that led Trump to pressure states like Texas to redraw their congressional districts early, before the decennial census.
The strategy aimed to capitalize on what Republicans saw as a shift in Hispanic voting behavior, particularly in border districts that had been Democratic strongholds for more than a century.
Texas' 15th congressional district was one of those that was redrawn, and it has become one of the clearest tests of whether electoral maps can guarantee political outcomes.
The congressional district was redrawn after the 2020 census and won by a Republican in 2022. It was redrawn again in 2025, creating a theoretical 18-point majority for Republicans in these midterm elections. Still, current polls suggest a Democratic lead of five or six points.
Bobby Pulido is the Democratic candidate hoping to win the district. As a popular Tejano music singer and winner of two Latin Grammys, he is already a household name throughout the Rio Grande Valley.
At an event held just weeks before the vote, he gave a standard political speech followed by a musical performance. "A lot of people are disillusioned with both parties," he told the BBC shortly before taking to the stage. "And I understand them."
To win in this part of Texas, you have to be conservative. Pulido distanced himself from the image of the Democratic Party on a national level and deliberately and consistently focused on economic issues.
"This is not New York, this is not Los Angeles," he said. "When you start with issues like social justice, climate change and other topics, that's not what people want to hear first. They want to hear about the economy."
This message is in line with what many current polls suggest: the economy, and the cost of living specifically, are at the top of most voters' list of priorities.
At a local celebration of avocados, a fruit that is a staple among the valley's Hispanic communities, a couple, Dave Baldwin and Veronica Salazar, began discussing rising prices as soon as they were asked about the upcoming election.
When asked who they blamed for the increase in costs, the answer was immediate: "The president," they said.
"With all of this, he controls our destiny, and right now he's not doing a very good job," Baldwin added.
Among many members of the Republican Party here, there is a feeling that they are at a disadvantage just weeks before the vote.
Alexis Uscanga, a student volunteer tasked with knocking on doors and checking in on likely Republican voters in the district, was realistic about what he's trying to achieve.
"The midterm elections are purely about participation," he said. "It's not so much about convincing people to vote one way or another, but rather about ensuring that our population goes to the polls."
Tano Tijerina, the Republican candidate in the neighboring district, the 28th District, currently controlled by Democrats, credited Trump with "overcoming barriers" but acknowledged that "the headwinds of national politics are real."
The shift in Hispanic votes towards President Trump in 2024 was one of the most striking political developments of the last decade. While this expanding demographic may not have much sympathy for either party, in a two-party system voters are, for the most part, forced to make a choice.
And if the polls are correct — and there is no guarantee of that — even a small swing to the Democrats in November could reshape elections not just in this state, but far beyond it.
In Texas, that could even be enough to put a US Senate seat up for grabs – and Democrats haven't won one of those seats in the state in more than 30 years.
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