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IPFS News Link • Free Trade

Why We Need Mexico

• Josh Eells

People say the American mall is dying - but if so, someone forgot to tell La Plaza Mall. La Plaza is the largest shopping center in McAllen, Texas, a mid-size city on the U.S.-Mexico border. It's the sort of establishment you'd find in any city or suburb - Foot Locker, Bath & Body Works, Baby Gap - the kind of brick-and-mortar retail dinosaur that's been hemorrhaging money for years. But not La Plaza. This mall recently underwent a $100 million expansion, and on a recent weekday - in the middle of the school year, in the middle of the week - its parking lot was full of cars. Most of them sported Mexican plates. McAllen is the biggest city in Hidalgo County, the most populous border county in Texas, not far from where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico. Owing to its location as one of the most accessible U.S. ports of entry for migrants fleeing Central America - hundreds of miles closer than El Paso or San Diego - the city is at the epicenter of some of th


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