Elon Musk has for years been telling anyone who will hear him — and plenty who would prefer not to — that he intends to colonize Mars. On a podcast earlier this year, Musk said that his SpaceX ships would start transporting people to Mars within ten years. The best-case scenario, he said, was a mere five years.

Musk says that he is intent on colonizing Mars because a multi-planetary existence is the only hope for humanity after we render Earth inhabitable. But in his headlong rush to colonize another planet, what Musk has actually done, according to a number of activists and residents, is colonize a small border city in South Texas.

Brownsville, Texas, is one of the poorest cities in the country. The poverty rate is nearly 30 percent overall, and higher for children. Nearly 35 percent of residents under sixty-five years of age are without health insurance. The city was recently ranked as the unhealthiest in the country, with high rates of diabetes among other illnesses. Internet connectivity is a problem. The border militarization of the area following the attacks of September 11 hamstrung the economy the city shares with Matamoros, its sister city in Mexico. The challenges are numerous, and, in a sense, unsurprising. Brownsville is almost 94 percent Hispanic and Latino, its history studded with episodes of colonization and disinvestment.