Horcón Tract


The Horcón Tract is a small tract of land that, prior to 1905, was situated north of the Rio Grande in Texas. As the Rio Grande formed the international border, the tract was unambiguously American territory. In July 1906, however, the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company dug a cutoff to shorten the course of the river, thus bypassing the tract. As a result, the of the tract became located south of the river. The company was eventually taken to court and fined for the diversion of the river, and the land was agreed to remain American territory, in accordance with the border treaty. In 1929 the town of Río Rico was founded near the tract on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. As the Rio Grande changed its course after floods, the settlement was progressively pushed into the tract. The residents, being mostly of Mexican heritage, accepted the authority of the Mexican government and all parties generally acted as if the tract was Mexican territory. However, the United States never actually relinquished the land, and the issue was re-discovered decades later by a researcher. The Boundary Treaty of 1970 provided for the Horcón Tract to revert to Mexico upon the completion of two new flood control projects. Thus in 1972 the United States officially ceded the tract of land to Mexico. The Board of Immigration Appeals later determined that persons born in the Horcón Tract between 1906 and 1972 could not be deported, effectively if not technically granting citizenship. As a result, a large portion of the population of Rio Rico moved to the United States.