While leaving for Piedras Negras, Mexico, we bumped into a Border Patrol agent while getting coffee.

He didn’t want to share too much but added: “I’ll tell ya this. I’m going to claim a dead body. Another migrant slipped off the train last night.”

“That’s a tough assignment to start the day,” I said.

In stride to his truck, he tossed an answer over his shoulder, “You get used to it.”

Gov. Maura Healey is returning from Rome along with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu — while leaving the migrant mess behind.

But on the Mexican border, it’s still deadly serious business; you “don’t mention Cartels no matter who we are talking to,” a border patrol agent urged.

The Mexican experts who spoke to us clarified two things: border-crossing traffic differs from sector to sector, as different cartels control different routes. And the Mexican government can stop the flow of migrants the way you turn off the faucet in your kitchen sink.

“The army can’t stay in the river forever, and they have pushed them (migrants) back 5 hours from here. The people here know this is the main problem in the election for Biden,” a border agent said.

No matter who wins the Biden-Trump rematch, on both sides of the Rio Grande they are bracing for another human tide.

Lt. Chris Olivarez is a Texas State Trooper who helps defend the border under Gov. Greg Abbot’s Declaration of Emergency.  He battles the cartels as well as federal, state, and local “politics” using a state strategy called Operation Lonestar-arresting illegal aliens as trespassers.

“The Texas state barriers are working. That is the why the crossing numbers are up in Arizona and San Diego. We try to focus on criminal activity,” Lt. Olivarez said. “The Texas State Police have stopped over 500,000 illegal immigrants in the past three years.  That is a massive dent in the number of gotaways.”

“Gotaways” are likely lawbreakers who avoid the Border Patrol because of past convictions and a listing in a criminal database that even the current administration cannot excuse away.

One of the sharpest observers I met was Randy Clark, a retired 32-year border patrol agent who writes about border news but bristles when being described as a journalist.

“We’ve had up to 10 bodies buried in a day here in a pauper’s grave. A hole and a body bag. I’ve been in law enforcement. I’ve been at fatal car accident scenes. I don’t think that’s the way … respect for a human being needs to come at the end of life…I mean come on,” he said.

Massachusetts needs to learn from the border states. This crisis is already at our door and no trip to Italy is going to make it go away.

Lou Murray is a citizen of Boston and tweets on the X platform @LouisLMurrayJr1.