U.S. border agents in Eagle Pass, Texas, are outnumbered by migrants by 200 to 1, even as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel have been sent from stations across the country to help the overwhelmed port. from the outset, The Post learned.
The Texas border station was processing more than 4,500 migrants at the facility on Tuesday, while another 5,300 people were already being held inside, bringing it to 260% capacity, according to figures from Fox News.
CBP checkpoints across the state have been forced to close and divert manpower to Eagle Pass, Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales told the Post, which he says leaves those communities unpatrolled, which allows drug and human traffickers to operate unhindered in more rural areas.
“All checkpoints are closed (Uvalde, Carizzo), all checkpoints are closed and all border patrol agents are here,” González said.
“Guess where they’re not? In the field, preventing bad actors and nefarious goods from arriving.”
“It’s dangerous,” he added. “Everyone is overwhelmed.”
Migrants outside Eagle Pass, Texas, being detained by Customs and Border Protection agents on Wednesday. fake images
The diversion of labor has spread beyond Texas, with CBP personnel flying from areas around the United States to help.
“I met a guy from Buffalo and a guy from New Jersey; I mean, they come to help from all over the country,” said Gonzalez, who gave a figure for how outnumbered the officers are.
Despite the crush of migrants, Gonzalez said CBP personnel remain “very resilient.”
Eagle Pass already closed one of its two international bridges into Mexico to consolidate resources earlier this month, and this week also stopped freight train access across the border.
Other ports of entry in Arizona and California have also been closed to divert labor.
Texas Congressman Tony González said the border crisis would not be resolved until President Biden took serious action. LET’S GO NAKAMURA
The desperation of the situation was exemplified once again on Monday, when a new daily record for migrant encounters was set after CBP agents intercepted 12,600 in 24 hours.
“It is not sustainable. Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, you haven’t,” González told reporters, accusing President Biden of failing to take aggressive steps to address the crisis and allowing Texas to fail.
“The state is doing everything it can to stay afloat, but this is a federal problem and it will only stop when the federal government responds,” he said.
Biden, 81, responded last year to the crisis by advising immigrants to “stay where they are and legally apply for asylum” by requesting asylum through the CBP One app. The president’s pleas appear to have been ignored.
“I visited the port of entry, where there were [just] 60 people who did it through the CBP One application. 60,” González said. “Ten thousand people are coming. “That process is completely broken.”
Eagle Pass firefighters said they have seen an increase in calls for heat exhaustion and water rescues in recent weeks. REUTERS
Local emergency services in Maverick County, of which Eagle Pass is a part, are also being swallowed up by the border crisis. In recent days, paramedics have routinely been stuck dealing with migrants, leaving the fire department alone to care for residents until ambulances are available.
“We have five ambulances for all of Maverick County, which is just over 1,200 square miles, and there comes a time when we are so stretched that we resort to sending fire trucks to emergency medical calls to provide basic life support and wait for the ambulances to arrive. “Eagle Pass and Maverick County Deputy Fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator Rodolfo Cardona told The Post.
“We’re dealing with everything from drowning to heat exhaustion,” Cardona said. “It’s been hectic and tragic.”
Three weeks ago, local firefighters pulled the bodies of 16 migrants from the Rio Grande who had drowned for 10 days trying to cross into the United States.
“There is a cost to having to be here in the river continually recovering the bodies of women and children. “It is extremely tragic and something our federal government needs to do something about,” the fire chief said.
Gonzalez told The Post that he has met with border agents from around the country who have been sent to help in Texas. LET’S GO NAKAMURA
The border crisis shows no signs of slowing down. Between August and October, CBP reported more than 300,000 encounters with migrants each month. Preliminary figures for November and December suggest the trend will continue.
In November, the backlog of immigration hearings for immigrants surpassed 3 million pending cases, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearing House (TRAC), up from 2 million just 12 months ago.
That backlog is equivalent to about 4,500 cases per judge in the court system, and cases are scheduled years in advance. Many of the immigrants behind those 3 million cases are free to remain in the United States until their hearing date.
In an attempt to take action on his own, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday signed a bill into law that allows police to arrest people caught entering the country illegally.
“Until President Biden steps up and does his job to secure the border, Texas will continue to take historic steps to help our local partners respond to this crisis caused by Biden,” an Abbott spokesperson said in a statement.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn