US border agents in Eagle Pass, Texas, were outnumbered by immigrants 200 to 1 even as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel were dispatched from stations across the country to assist the overwhelmed port of entry, The Post has learned.
The Texas border station was processing more than 4,500 immigrants into the facility on Tuesday while another 5,300 people were being held inside, bringing the capacity to 260%, according to figures from Fox News.
CBP checkpoints across the state have been forced to close and shift manpower to Eagle Pass, Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales told The Post, which he said has left the community unchecked, allowing drug and human traffickers to operate unhindered in more rural areas.
“Every checkpoint is closed – Uvalde, Carizzo – every checkpoint is closed and every border patrol agent is here,” Gonzalez said.
“Guess where they don’t? In the field stop bad actors and bad stuff coming.”
“It’s dangerous,” he added. “Everyone was moved.”
Immigrants outside Eagle Pass, Texas, were surrounded by Customs and Border Protection agents on Wednesday. Getty Images
The shift in manpower has extended beyond Texas, with CBP personnel flying in from around the US to help.
“I met a guy from Buffalo and another guy from New Jersey — I mean they’re coming to help from all over the country,” said Gonzalez, who gave a figure on how many agents were outnumbered.
Despite the immigration squeeze, Gonzalez said CBP personnel remain “very resilient.”
Eagle Pass closed one of its two international bridges to Mexico to consolidate resources earlier this month, and this week also halted freight train access across the border.
Other ports of entry throughout Arizona and California have also been closed to divert labor.
Texas Congressman Tony Gonzalez says the border crisis will not be resolved until President Biden takes serious action. GO TO NAKAMURA
The desperation was exemplified again on Monday, when a new daily record for migrant encounters was set after 12,600 were intercepted by CBP officers in 24 hours.
“It is not sustainable. Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, you haven’t,” Gonzalez told reporters, accusing President Biden of failing to take aggressive steps to address the crisis and allowing Texas to wallow.
“The state is doing everything possible to keep its head above water, but this is a federal issue and this only stops when the federal government responds,” he said.
Biden, 81, last year responded to the crisis by advising immigrants to “stay where you are and apply legally” by seeking asylum through the CBP One application. The president’s pleas seem to have gone unheeded.
“I visited the ports of entry, where there are [just] 60 people who do it through the CBP One application. 60,” Gonzalez said. “There are ten thousand people coming. The process is completely broken.”
Fire officials in Eagle Pass say they have seen an increase in calls for heat exhaustion and water rescues in recent weeks. Reuters
Local emergency services in Maverick County, which is part of Eagle Pass, were also drawn into the border crisis. In recent days, paramedics have routinely been caught up in dealing with migrants, leaving firefighters alone to serve residents until an ambulance is available.
“We have five ambulances for the entire district of Maverick, which is just over 1,200 square miles, and there comes a time where we are so difficult, we have to send a fire truck to an emergency medical call to provide basic life support and wait for an ambulance. ,” Assistant Fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator for Eagle Pass and Maverick County, Rodolfo Cardona, told The Post.
“We deal with everything from drowning to heat exhaustion,” Cardona said. “It’s very busy and tragic.”
Three weeks ago, local firefighters pulled the bodies of 16 migrants from the Rio Grande who drowned for 10 days trying to cross into the US.
“It takes a toll to be on this river to constantly search for the bodies of women and children. It’s very tragic and it’s something that our federal government needs to do something about,” said the fire chief.
Gonzalez told The Post that he has met with border agents from around the country who have been sent to help in Texas. GO TO NAKAMURA
The border crisis shows no signs of slowing down. Between August and October, CBP reported more than 300,000 migrants encountered each month. Preliminary numbers from November and December suggest the trend will continue.
As of November, the backlog for immigrant immigration hearings exceeded 3 million pending cases, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearing House (TRAC) — up from 2 million just 12 months ago.
That backlog equates to about 4,500 cases per judge in the court system, with cases scheduled years in advance. Many of the immigrants behind the 3 million cases are free to stay in the US until their court dates.
Trying to take action himself, on Monday Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that would allow police to arrest people caught illegally entering the country.
“Until President Biden steps up and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue to take historic action to help our local partners respond to this Biden-created crisis,” Abbott’s spokesman said in a statement.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
