EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — Hundreds of migrants crossed illegally into El Paso, Texas, on Thursday morning, and forced their way past the National Guard’s concertina wire to gather at the border wall, where U.S. Border Patrol agents began processing them at the gate.
Video taken from Juarez, Mexico, shows National Guard members looking on as the migrants crowded the gate at International Marker No. 36.
Border Patrol agents take migrants into custody on Thursday, March 21, 2023, in South El Paso, after hundreds began gathering at the border wall. (Miguel Paredes/KTSM)
On the U.S. side, Border Patrol agents began loading migrants into vans before taking them to a processing center.
The rush to the border comes a little over a day after a three-judge panel on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order that again prevented a Texas law that allows local law enforcement to arrest migrants from taking effect. That ruling came late Tuesday evening and just hours after the Supreme Court allowed the strict new immigration law to take effect.
Migrants with whom Border Report spoke this week said they were unaware of the law. While some urged fellow migrants to try to find a legal way, including using the CBP One app to schedule an asylum appointment, others said many would attempt to enter the U.S. even if they were putting their lives at risk.
On Wednesday, Border Patrol officials said the El Paso Sector was seeing record lows in average daily encounters this fiscal year. A Border Patrol spokesman told Border Report’s news partner, KTSM, that in March, the El Paso Sector was averaging 920 daily encounters.
The Border Patrol said that migrants are cutting the concertina wire or placing clothing or pieces of cardboard over the wire after they cross the international boundary illegally.
The Border Patrol migrants have been continuously arriving in small groups and gathering at Marker No. 36, including one recent instance in which more than 200 people mostly from Venezuela and Colombia, and including families with children, amassed by the gate.
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