You agreed that it's a precarious and generally bad situation for the immigrants to be in, and objected on moral grounds,
... but then jump straight to the negative affects that local citizens are supposedly suffering from, without actually listing any that are unique to those border towns.
Undercutting workers would be nationwide, as would any adverse affects on the healthcare system. Being in the states illegally means you avoid going back and forth across the border - so being in a border town doesn't strike me as relevant to a discussion about illegal immigrants.
So I'm earnestly asking, which issues affect border towns more than any other place in America, considering most illegal immigrants are overstaying visas instead of trying to sneak through the US-Mexico border?
There is no shortage of news stories about the issues.
Examples:
https://www.tpr.org/border-immigration/2023-05-01/texas-bord...
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/07/03/texas-cities-confron...
https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/small-south-te...
https://doctorsoftheworld.org/blog/humanitarian-crisis-the-m...
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/09/21/texas-migrants-borde...
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/19/1232383832/schools-face-big-c...
https://nypost.com/2023/09/20/eagle-pass-texas-declares-stat...
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/02/1167645456/border-towns-are-f...
In other words, the US is already way more prepared for climate refugees than, say, the EU is. Though, to be fair, the US is also going to have a lot of internal climate refugees, too.
By making sure that when those refugees show up cities aren't already overwhelmed by migrants also by helping the government keep track of how many people are here and how many are entering so they can make informed decisions about how many refugees we can accommodate.
It has led to this situation where token gestures are made, largely to appease the Americans living in/near border towns and suffering under the weight of the negative consequences.
I don't know how long they'll be able to pay lip service to the problem though. There will be literal billions of climate refugees coming in the near future and they won't be economic migrants looking for higher wages. They will be genuinely desperate and for them getting past the border of another country will be a matter of survival. With a well secured border and carefully regulated immigration the US should be able to take a lot of those refugees in without being overwhelmed by them. If we're not prepared for it in advance, what we'll be left with will be far from the status quo the shortsighted have been trying so hard to preserve.