oe Metz, a straight-talking Texas rancher on the U.S.-Mexico border, awoke recently to find 50 cows roaming freely in his front yard. Undocumented immigrants, he says, left a gate open as they crossed his land, which abuts the Rio Grande.

For years, he’s witnessed migrants and drug smugglers touch American soil for the first time on his property.

“We deal with this every day,” he said.

But as a rancher in Hidalgo County, he also knows firsthand the need for labor to keep producers in the Rio Grande Valley operating. The traffic through his land frustrates him — particularly the potentially dangerous drug traffic — but he acknowledges that most crossers are looking for opportunity.

It is an open secret that many of these undocumented immigrants will indeed find jobs in the local economy.

More than 1,700 miles away, U.S. lawmakers are engaged in their own debate over how to balance security concerns and immigrant labor needs.

via For those living on border, security is complicated subject – CNN.com.