Mayor Jaime Escobar Jr., would be at his desk, inside his modest city hall office, when something outside his window would catch his eye. An individual, or maybe more than one, making a run for it, through the historic downtown plaza in the small border city of Roma, Texas.

On more than a few occasions, there would be hundreds of people gathered in that same plaza. Many travelled as families, having just crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S. There are stairs at the river’s edge to help migrants up a steep rocky cliff, where Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers would often be waiting. Most people, he says, would surrender and formally start the asylum-seeking process.

“It wouldn’t necessarily happen every single day … I’d come to see it a few times a week at least,” Escobar told CBC Ne

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