Texas police and Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents identified an abandoned child as a Salvadoran unaccompanied minor. Smugglers abandoned the child at a Walmart store near the Texas-Mexico border.
Border Patrol agents arrested multiple criminal migrants, sex offenders, and members of criminal gangs over the past few days. Those arrested included a convicted rapist, a member of the violent MS-13 transnational gang with multiple deportations, and a fugitive accused of molesting a child in 2019.
Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector interdicted multiple human smuggling attempts during the Labor Day weekend. The encounters led to the rescue of several migrants being transported in dangerous situations.
A new Texas law makes it easier to prosecute human smugglers by removing the requirement to prove the intent to obtain a “pecuniary benefit.” The bill also makes it a 3rd Degree Felony to “assist, guide, or direct” migrants to enter or remain on agricultural land without the consent of the owner.
A young migrant woman from El Salvador died after being struck by a vehicle early Tuesday morning as she attempted to cross a highway in a well-known human smuggling area. The woman appeared to be running toward a ranch to circumvent the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint located on U.S. Highway 281 in Brooks County, Texas.
Border Patrol agents arrested multiple sex offenders and gang members along the southwest border with Mexico. Those arrested include sex offenders, violent criminals, and members of gangs.
Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents rescued a group of migrants locked inside a railcar in Eagle Pass, Texas. Border Patrol officials in the Del Rio and Laredo Sectors report increases in the use of trains to smuggle migrants.
A female migrant died while attempting to escape from a Border Patrol agent near downtown Laredo, Texas. Agents arrested the woman after she illegally entered the United States. After slipping out of handcuffs, she ran into the darkness and fell from a 20-foot cliff and died from her injuries.
More than 2,000 mostly Haitian and Venezuelan migrants crossed the Rio Grande at Del Rio, Texas, during the past week. Several hundred migrants remain at the river’s edge awaiting transport and processing due to logistical problems plaguing the Border Patrol.
The Border Patrol announced it will begin construction of another soft-sided migrant detention facility in response to the continuing surge of illegal border crossings. The facility in Laredo, Texas, like others recently constructed along the state’s border with Mexico, will accommodate 500 migrants and will be completed in late September.
Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents and local police officers discovered 120 migrants locked inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig late last month. The group included five unaccompanied minors.
Border Patrol agents in South Texas teamed up with state and local law enforcement to interdict several human smuggling operations, one ending with an armed suspect.
Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents utilizing Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) detected a group of 30 migrants preparing to enter the United States illegally. Ground-based agents later intervened.
Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement officials found the bodies or skeletal remains of more than 100 migrants so far this fiscal year.
Residents of Refugio County, Texas, honored the life of a sheriff’s office jailer on Tuesday who died in the line of duty after contracting the coronavirus while processing a migrant apprehended in a human smuggling incident. A sheriff’s office deputy is also recovering from COVID-19 after apprehending the migrant 200 miles from the Texas-Mexico border.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced the authorization for Texas National Guard troops to make arrests for violations of Texas law. The governor is also “surging” additional guardsmen to the border region. Abbott indicated troopers will be working with Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and local law enforcement authorities at the border to increase security.
Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents rescued a migrant teen who had been abandoned by human smugglers. The agents found the Mexican minor approximately 60 miles from the border.
Human smuggling pursuits and the apprehension of migrants are now daily episodes for a Texas sheriff’s office located 200 miles from the Mexican border. Refugio County Sheriff Raul “Pinky” Gonzales says the trend shifted from a couple of times per month to a daily grind for his deputies since January.
For a second time in as many days, Hutchinson County Sheriff Blaik Kemp and his deputies were forced to release migrants after federal officials refused to take them into custody. Sheriff’s office officials released the migrants, 24 in all, after Kemp exhausted all efforts to get assistance from federal agencies. Deputies arrested two suspects and charged them with Trafficking of Persons among other charges.
On Monday, a dispatcher working for the Refugio County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO) answered two 911 emergency calls coming from a local convenience store. The distressed callers described cries for help and banging noises coming from the back of a U-Haul cargo rental truck.
Border Patrol agents and CBP officers in South Texas arrested multiple deported sex offenders, a fugitive accused of rape, and two MS-13 gang members. The arrests come as agents in Texas-based border sectors face a massing surge in migrants illegally entering the United States.
A Border Patrol K-9 team carrying out train inspections in the Del Rio Sector found a toddler and his mother locked inside a grain-hopper rail car. The mother and son were without food or water in triple-digit temperatures.
Border Patrol agents assigned to the Rio Grande City Station apprehended more than 1,000 migrants in a few hours last week. This occurred as Rio Grande Valley Sector agents apprehended more than 4,000 in a single day.
Border Patrol agents in the five Texas-based sectors apprehended 146,212 migrants in July who illegally crossed the border from Texas. This represents more than 73 percent of all migrants apprehended last month in the nine southwest border sectors. It also represents an increase of percent over June’s 126,485 apprehensions.
Border Patrol officials in the Texas Rio Grande Valley announced a new sector record for the apprehension of migrants in a 24-hour period. The apprehensions, which were recorded on Thursday, totaled nearly 4,000 throughout the day. Ironically, the record-breaking apprehensions occurred on the very day Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas visited the area to get a firsthand look at conditions on the ground in South Texas.
Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 200,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico during the month of July. This represents an increase of more than 418 percent over the same month last year and a 12 percent increase over the previous 21-year-high mark set in June.
Texas border community leaders are set to meet with Biden Administration officials and will reportedly ask for a moratorium on releasing additional migrants from federal custody.
Border Patrol agents in the nation’s busiest sector, the Rio Grande Valley, apprehended more than 320 migrants in two groups during a 24-hour period.
The Biden Administration and the City of Laredo, Texas, reached an agreement to end a lawsuit over the Border Patrol’s transfer of migrants from the Rio Grande Valley to the border city. The agreements will reportedly result in the City of Laredo busing released migrants to major Texas cities without being tested for COVID-19, according to Mayor Pete Saenz.
Border Patrol agents along the southwestern U.S. border with Mexico continue to find deported sex offenders and other criminal migrants hiding in large groups. Over the weekend, agents in the Yuma and Rio Grande Valley sector made multiple such arrests.
The Biden Administration is holding what appears to be thousands of migrants in what the ACLU calls an “inhumane outdoor pen.” Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol officials are being forced to store recently apprehended migrants under the Anzalduas International Bridge near Mission, Texas, because of overcrowding in processing centers.
The Kinney County Sheriff’s Office posted images of 17 migrants booked in jail after illegally crossing the border from Mexico. The migrants were arrested by state police following an emergency declaration by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
A leaked presidential briefing document reported on by NBC News revealed that 20 percent of unaccompanied migrant children who illegally crossed the border are testing positive for COVID-19 after being released into communities by Border Patrol. The report covers the last two to three weeks of data prepared for President Joe Biden, NBC says.
Many hotels and motels in downtown McAllen, Texas, bustled with migrants on Saturday who had been recently released by Border Patrol officials. Medical personnel checked on many of the migrants on the hotel grounds.
A Florida resident paced outside a non-government migrant shelter in McAllen, Texas, on Friday hoping to see a friend’s family members. Vicky, who did not want to provide a last name, expressed displeasure at the disorganized conditions at the shelter, the spreading of COVID-19, and the lack of information needed to locate the family members inside.
Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents found a group of 14 migrants packed inside a produce trailer at an interior immigration checkpoint in Texas. Agents in the sector also rescued a migrant who fell from a cliff and injured his leg.
At least ten migrants are dead and 20 others injured in a rollover crash in Brooks County, Texas. The crash occurred on U.S. Highway 281 approximately 70 miles north of the Texas-Mexico border.
Del Rio Sector Border Patrol officials received a 911 call from migrant children who became lost after crossing from Mexico.
Migrant apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley Sector continue to rise as Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 21,000 migrants during the last week. The announcement by sector officials follows a tweet reporting the apprehension of more than 20,000 migrants the week before.
A video tweeted by Fox News shows perhaps as many as 1,000 migrants being held outdoors under an international border bridge in South Texas on Sunday. The placement of migrants in an outdoor detention facility comes amid the apprehensions of tens of thousands of migrants in the Rio Grande Valley Sector in recent weeks.
