Yup. It sure can.
Many moons ago, I visited the Alamo - in Texas. The tour guide went over the history of the region and why the Alamo was such an important battle. I'll summarize:
After Mexico won its independence from Spain, they found themselves the proud owners of the territory of Texas. But it was sparsely populated and in need of people to establish a civilized presence. So they created programs to entice US residents, hungry for opportunity, to settle the region. They offered free land, and even cash incentives, for foreigners willing to tame the land and, eventually, pay taxes.
After twenty years or so, conservatives in Mexico City won leadership of the government. And they weren't as enthused about foreigners populating "their" land. The newbs weren't speaking Spanish and the Mexican government worried that they would water down the culture. So they cancelled the induced immigration policies, and began passing laws to close the border and crack down on US immigration.
But when you have opportunity on one side of a border, and hungry people on the other, the border tends to get ignored. Americans continued to flood the region and the Mexican government decided to take a hard line. Thus the Alamo. That turned out to be a pretty bad idea.
