Had not heard that up here in DFW (though I wouldn't necessarily know). Heading down to Houston/Galveston week after next. We'll see if anything looks awry then....

Trouble is the American Wagon isn't what it was in the 19th, early 20th Cs. What once was a sink-or-swim society with voluntary charity available in some cases, or help from friends and relatives, is now a virtual welfare state with goon-collected benefits available to anyone who sets foot on American soil and willing to bend knees in thanks to Biden and other Dem bureaucrats..

Look at them before they arrive at the Border. Well warmly dressed, energetic and eager to violate our laws. I have no sympathy for them when what they are doing is illegal and they know it!

The wheels are coming off the American Wagon...

If they arrive as wealthy as you suggest, maybe they are more of a credit to our nation that I thought. Maybe they are in a position to turn down charity or government help and pay their own way.

About arriving stripped of valuable possessions: I read somewhere that the '23 1.7T budget includes reimbursement to NGOs and charities that provide/provided relief to migrants, and that the amount was short of 1B but in the hundreds of millions.

The efforts of those charities, churches, etc. might account for the apparent prosperity you claim to observe among recent illegal immigrants who got here under cartel "protection."

I haven't read anything to make me think that the Mexican cartels are doing anything but exploiting those who are answering Biden's call--and, by exploiting, I mean squeezing everything they can out of them. I would like to see some evidence besides casual observation that I'm wrong in my current assumption.

I've noticed much of the same. Also, every once in a while one hears about how much the cartels charge for the mule service along with how poverty stricken the illegal aliens are, but nowhere do I see an explanation of where the dough comes from to buy the mule ticket, clothing, backpacks, cell phones, and even sustenance and shelter for a thousand mile (or much more) journey - not to mention non-US flags to fly and printed posters. I think that well photographed group wearing the new Biden for president shirts are a hint at one source of revenue - TREASON!

Excuse me I haven't seen any 'stripped' persons crossing the Border. They are wearing expensive jackets and shoes. Their backpacks cost a lot of money also and the carriages for their babies cost a lot of money! Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.

Most of these unfortunate people were stripped of everything but the clothes on their backs by the cartels that got them to the border (while fleecing, raping them along the way). Now, those with medical needs (and there are many) have absolutely no alternative but to go to the ER where altruistically inclined hospitals have to accept them even though the hospitals know they will never receive payment from such patients.

Ultimately, paying for their treatments must be shifted to the federal or state government (or absorbed by deferring expenses to paying hospital customers)--or those hospitals will face bankruptcy and the inability to pay their ever diminishing staff.

In the mean time, such indigent migrants will be recuperating in hospital bids or in IC units displacing American citizens and their needs.

all of which We the People pay for

They are camping out in the ER's...destroying hotels...they are a bunch of animals in good clothing and expensive shoes!

You can't have 5 million largely destitute migrants, unvetted for disease or critical medical needs, dumped on cities without eventually learning of the scale of the impact--especially when hospitals are already critically understaffed. CNN, for example admits this, but won't connect the dots back to the unvetted migrant invasion.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/health....

It seems the hospitals in San Antonio are facing the same problem we have over here on the Gulf Coast I find this interesting. When I questioned the nurses, I got a blank look from them. A friend called me and told me what he'd heard and we aren't saying a word. 'We'll see" said the old Zenmaster!

Both my son and my daughter are admitted for Congestive Heart Failure. My BFF in San Antonio called me and sounded very strange something about alliens. I got in touch with her sister because I realize she was sedated and got hold of her phone!