All of us in public service have a duty to try to make things better for the people that we serve. And how do you make things better for people we serve? We give them an opportunity. We give them an opportunity to really reach their full potential. Have we reached our full potential in this area? No, we have not.
The question is, how do we reach our full potential? I believe that we can reach our full potential by doing what RioPlex wants us to do: to market ourselves as the region that we are, we are a region of South Texas and Northern Mexico, because when you add South Texas and Northern Mexico together, we can compete. We can compete with other areas.
In Texas, we have what is called the Texas Triangle, which is which runs from Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston to San Antonio. Do you know that 67 percent of the people that live in Texas live in that triangle? Did you all know that? Do you know that Texas is expecting for that triangle to grow to 80 percent? Do you know that out of the 360 new businesses that moved into Texas or expanded in Texas, the majority went to the Texas Triangle?
Ladies and gentlemen, that's our competition. And how do we compete? The good news is eventually there will be saturation. You can only put so much water in that bottle, and then you can't put in any more. So we have an opportunity to be that choice for the continued growth. And the way that we're going to be competitive is… we have to provide what they (the Texas Triangle) are providing. So let's consider what they're providing. The first thing they're providing is a pipeline of talented young people. Do you all agree with that? Talented young people.
Today, we (the RioPlex region) have a negative migration of the young people who are educated. They're leaving, and they're leaving because they're not being rewarded by the education that they have, because we can't match it with a (good) job. So, all of you people here in economic development, we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do to be sure that we're going to bring in the investment we need to be able to provide those young people that are getting educated here a job here. And this is where all of you come in, and that's why I am drooling. I am so happy to see all of you here because I see a lot of talent, I see a lot of resources here that when RioPlex gets gets fully going, this is going to be a wow area.
So please continue doing what you're doing. I believe that we're on the right track. We can do things together better than apart. We are not competing with one another. We're competing with someone else.
Thank you.
Editor’s Note: The above remarks were delivered by Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez at a RioPlex mixer held at International Banks of Commerce in Brownsville on July 30, 2026.
