10,000+ migrants and more coming in border fiasco
Hundreds pass freely over the Rio Grande
Hundreds of illegal immigrants are streaming into Texas from Mexico across the Rio Grande — with no intervention from authorities on either side of the border.
Video and pictures showed more than 10,000 migrants huddled under a border bridge and in tents for shelter from the heat and sun in the Texas border city of Del Rio on Friday.
Dozens of others were seen crossing from Mexico into Texas via a shallow portion of the Rio Grande.
Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano said there were 10,503 migrants under the bridge as of Thursday, while 2,000 to 3,000 were in detention “at any given moment.”
Meanwhile, food and water remain scarce under the Del Rio International Bridge as many migrants have been told they could be waiting several days to be processed.
Faced with shortages, hundreds of the migrants have trekked back into Mexico to buy food, water and other provisions that they have been unable to get in Texas and have then brought them back in unmolested by any authorities or barriers.
Lozano warned that the unchecked crossings open “the potential for a terror threat.”
“We need quick action from the administration. We need quick attention to this. We need a response in real time,” he said.
The majority of the migrants in this latest influx come from Haiti, while others are reportedly from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Many say they plan to apply for asylum in the US.
Haiti has been racked by unrest and natural disasters. In the past few months, the country’s president was assassinated, and it was hit by both an earthquake and a hurricane.
The Biden administration plans a widescale expulsion of the Haitian migrants by putting them on flights to Haiti starting Sunday, an official told The Associated Press.
Details are yet to be finalized but will likely involve five to eight flights a day, according to the official with direct knowledge of the plans who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Another administration official speaking on condition of anonymity expected two flights a day at most.
The unlawful crossings come days after border officials confirmed they had encountered 208,887 migrants at the southwestern frontier in August.
Last month marked the first time that more than 200,000 illegal-immigrant encounters had been recorded in consecutive months since February 2000 and March 2000, when 211,328 and 220,063 were logged, respectively.
Officials have stopped 1,323,597 people attempting to illegally cross the US-Mexico border so far this year.
Customs and Border Protection will be increasing manpower in the Del Rio area, although they will still be severely understaffed against the throng.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration decided on Thursday to ban flights over the area, limiting the media’s ability to document the chaos in Del Rio after Fox News flew a drone over the scene this week.
The restriction was met with backlash from lawmakers.
“We know what they’re doing, and they are not getting away with it. Restricting and blocking the media’s drones over the Del Rio bridge proves that the administration is fully aware of the crisis they have created,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said on Friday.
“This refusal to be transparent is yet another way the Biden administration is trying to twist the true narrative of what is happening at the border. With or without media access, we will not stop working to expose the truth about this humanitarian and national security crisis.”
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) told The Post, “The American people deserve to know the extent of the crisis at the southern border, but instead of addressing it, President Biden has weaponized a government agency to hide it from them.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who was in Del Rio Thursday night, slammed the restriction as “ridiculous” and said he had “never seen anything like that.”
“The drone footage started this morning, and people across the country were horrified, and I guess the political operatives at the Biden White House saw that and decided the last thing they want is Fox News actually reporting on what’s happening down here,” he said.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, who has been covering the border, called the timing and location of the restriction “a little bit curious,” noting the station had been using drones at the border for the past seven months.
Since taking office, Biden has received bipartisan and international criticism for instituting policies that critics say have created the humanitarian crisis at the border.