I think kids learn better before ESL. When we were in Corpus Christi my son had a ton of friends that had been an ESL for years and years. Then they had one student from Russia who didn’t speak a word of English. By the end of the first year he was quite proficient. They have a stake in keeping these kids in these classes where they don’t learn much.
Looks like I better not go to Alpine though.
Since I worked on ranches in Alpine, most of the hands were from Mexico. They came and worked for 6 or so months, then went home to family and lived very well down there with their dollars. People that lived in town mostly spoke some English or some Spanish.
I live pretty close to the border here, but this is nothing like California where you can’t order a hamburger or do anything because they won’t allow employers to discriminate.