BIDEN SAID HE’D HELP
Refrain from those who cross illegally:
A Post reporter accompanied local law enforcement as they rescued migrants held by smugglers in Texas. “I came because [Biden] has more heart . . . He can help us,” one woman said.
HIDALGO COUNTY, Texas — On a dusty patch of gravel a few miles from the Mexican border, the journey north for 12 Latin American migrants came to a screeching halt.
Three women and nine men, mostly from Honduras and Guatemala, were rescued from a stash house in Edinburg, Texas, on Wednesday by the Hidalgo County Sheriff ’s Office after most had been smuggled into the country by coyotes who were holding them for ransom.
“I arrived here bleeding without clothes, very hurt, but this is something that we do for our children and for our family,” Elizabeth Carrillo, 20, told The Post as she sobbed.
“We almost died in the [Rio Grande] when we crossed.”
The rescue was witnessed by The Post during a ride-along with the officers as they worked alongside US Border Patrol for Operation Stonegarden, a federal grant program that gives funding to local law-enforcement units to assist with border-security measures.
They’d been sent to the scene at around 5 a.m. after Carrillo told relatives in New Jersey that she and the other migrants were being held by two men with guns who were refusing to let them leave until they were paid off.
“They told me if I said anything that they would do something to me and my daughter,” the Ecuador native said, adding that she’d been kidnapped by coyotes after she crossed the river alone.
By the time cops arrived, the coyotes were long gone. The migrants said the coyotes lived in a home across the street, but when cops knocked on the door, no one answered.
Carrillo is one of the tens of thousands of migrants who have rushed toward the border in recent weeks after President Biden relaxed strict immigration policies put in place by his predecessor, Donald Trump, and appeared to send a more welcoming message to desperate foreigners in search of a better life.
“They said that Biden was going to help the people,” Carrillo explained as she sat on the ground outside the stash house beside a handful of broken children’s
I came because [Biden] has more heart. He is the president that could help us. — Juana Débora Jiménez (right)
toys and the other migrants, waiting for Border Patrol to pick them up for processing.
“My purpose was to come here with my family, work for five years and to go back and be with my daughter. I only wanted to work to give my daughter a future. I never thought that it was like this,” she said of her 1-yearold, who is in the care of her mother.
Juana Débora Jiménez, 33, spent three months traveling from Mazatenango, Guatemala, so she could join relatives in Miami, find work and send money back for her two children, who weren’t able to attend school during the pandemic. She believed Biden would be more sympathetic to her plight.
“I came because he has more heart,” Jiménez cried.
“He is the president that could help us. He cares more about us than the other one, and I thought he would see our necessity and help us. Our own president doesn’t care about us,” the mom continued.
“I ask the president to help us . . . I think that maybe he will see the need that we have for work. If we wouldn’t have the need for work, then we
wouldn’t come in like this.”
As part of the operation, the sheriff’s office spends most of its time conducting traffic stops in search of vehicles suspected of use in human smuggling; rescuing migrants left behind in the brush by coyotes — or collecting their dead bodies; and conducting raids and rescues at stash houses.
“Usually in the past, before the change in administration, we would work stash houses but not to the frequency we are now,” said Sgt. Robert Quait, who took The Post for the ride-along.
Before Biden assumed office, there were one or two humansmuggling busts at stash houses a week, but recently, there “could be multiple in a day,” Quait said.
“The coyotes were telling them Biden opened up the borders, so the caravans started coming. It’s picked up,” a deputy said.
During a previous rescue, a deputy said, the migrants asked them, “How do we get processed?”
“I said, ‘What do you mean “get processed?’ and they said, ‘We were told as soon as we get here, they’ll let us stay.’ ”
A US Customs and Border Protection spokesman wasn’t able to say where the 12 migrants, and eight others apprehended later in the day, ended up and whether they’d be allowed to stay in the country.
“Unfortunately, we do not track,” the spokesman, Thomas Gresback, told The Post in an e-mail. “Without knowing the specific cases, the migrants apprehended at the stash house will be processed — most likely under Title 8, which covers a broad spectrum of immigration laws.
“The individuals will be turned over to other agencies, such as ICE, for additional processing. Every case is different based on the specifics of the individual.”
When asked which public agency would know where the migrants went, Gresback said, “No one would really know” since they weren’t processed as a group.
“The stations process the individuals and then transfer custody to the appropriate agencies based on the case history . . . Each one of them could possibly have been treated differently based on their history,” he said.
“The Border Patrol works closely with all federal agencies in processing migrants based on each case.”
While there have been previous migrant surges to the southern border under President Barack Obama in 2014 and Trump in 2019, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted Tuesday the latest rush is set to be the largest in decades.
“We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years,” he said in a statement.
In January, more than 78,000 migrants were encountered at the border. In February, that number shot up by 28 percent to 100,441, the largest number seen since March 2019, US Customs and Border Protection data show.
So far in fiscal year 2021, spanning October to February, the overwhelming majority of encounters involved single adults, accounting for 82.3 percent of the total. About 10 percent were family units and 7 percent were unaccompanied kids.
“Over the last few weeks, it seems like a switch has been flipped,” a CBP official said.
“It’s bad — and if it continues at this pace, it’s going to get worse.”