EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – While not at the critical levels seen in Arizona and Eagle Pass, Texas, in the past week, migrant encounters are spiking in El Paso as well.
Border agents here say they’re processing an average of 1,100 migrants daily, up from the 700 to 800 they saw across the border after Thanksgiving. Most are coming across the Rio Grande and surrendering to request asylum, and many are single adults and families from Venezuela.
By comparison, more than 3,000 migrants crossed the river in Eagle Pass on Tuesday, and a group of 300 was waiting to be processed in Lukeville, Arizona after 3,000 had come in the previous day, News Nation correspondent Ali Bradley reported.
“We don’t know exactly what triggered this flow of people, but we are encouraging them to follow legal pathways for crossing the border,” said Claudio Herrera-Baeza, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in El Paso. “Coming across between ports of entry in violation of immigration law can have undesired consequences (for an asylum claim). Don’t believe disinformation being spread by transnational criminal organizations on social media. Don’t risk your lives in cold temperatures.”
On Monday, border agents were busing groups of asylum seekers from Gate 36 at the U.S. border wall to processing centers in El Paso. Those centers held about 4,300 migrants on Monday, according to the City of El Paso’s migrant dashboard web portal, compared to the 3,256 just a week ago.
Many of those migrants arrived in Juarez, across the border from El Paso, from the interior of Mexico on top of cargo trains in the past two weeks.
Carlos Camacho, a Venezuelan migrant standing on the Mexican banks of the river across from Gate 36, said his family decided to cross into the U.S. on Tuesday because they felt unsafe in Mexico.
“We were robbed. Our money was taken from us in a town near Irapuato. They tried to kidnap us while we were sleeping on a plaza in Juchitan.” Before that, Camacho said. “A van came with people asking if there were women and children. We got scared. … Why would people ask for the women and the children?”
A KTSM/Border Report camera crew on Tuesday captured images of migrants struggling to get past the Texas Army National Guard razor wire at the border. Those who made it huddled in front of Gate 36, waiting for the Border Patrol to get them.
U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, who represents a stretch of border that includes Eagle Pass and portions of El Paso, called the situation “dire.”
“The cartels are dismantling our entire southern border. While mass migrant caravans pull our CBP personnel off the front lines, multiple Border Patrol checkpoints have been shut down, allowing contraband and criminals to flow in without resistance,” Gonzales said in a statement.
Gonzales says 8 million migrants have come across the border since 2021 and is demanding that those who don’t qualify for asylum when they show up at the border be promptly removed. “Only then will our laws be taken seriously,” he said.
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