Trump is Spending Billions on Border Security. Some Residents Living There Lack Basic Resources.

April 17, 2025
by Anjanette Damon and Perla Trevizo | ProPublica

Dr. Derksen quoted in article

by Anjeanette Damon, ProPublica, and Perla Trevizo, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, and photography by Cengiz Yar, ProPublica

This story was originally published by ProPublica https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-border-security-spending-texas-arizona

Reporting Highlights

  • Unmet needs: In Texas, 30,000 border residents lack access to reliable drinking water. In Arizona, 205,000 people on its border with Mexico are hours from a full-service hospital.
  • Striking contrasts: The region shows a striking disparity between the size of federal and state governments’ investment there and how little it’s reflected in residents’ quality of life.

The year [2015 that Cochise Regional Hospital] closed, it had no onsite physicians, said Dr. Dan Derksen, director of the Arizona Center for Rural Health. The state has programs to address that problem, including helping doctors in rural areas repay school loans. But the shortage has persisted. “There are policy strategies that you can do at the state level that help, but there’s no single strategy that is a cure-all,” Derksen said. “You have to do a variety of strategies.”