Along the Texas-Mexico border, GOP enthusiasm mounts as Democrats defect over immigration concerns

Terrell County Judge Dale Lynn Carruthers looks over the Rio Grande at the edge of her 17,000-acre property. Last year, a hunter stumbled upon the body of a migrant on her property. (Credit: Azul Sordo/The Texas Tribune)

SANDERSON — Dale Lynn Carruthers had always been a Democrat.

Growing up in the small, predominantly Hispanic city of Sanderson near the border in West Texas, everyone she knew belonged to the party, which had long been dominant in the region. So when she ran for a seat on the Terrell County Commissioners Court for the first time in 2018, there was no question that she’d do so as a Democrat.