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New Video Shows the Updated Border Wall Is Working

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The U.S. Border Patrol has released new video showing parts of the southern border with Mexico, which used to be accessible to illegal aliens, drug traffickers, human smugglers, cartels and other bad actors, has been closed off thanks to new fencing in Arizona. . .

The same goes for new fencing in San Diego, where illegal aliens attempted to cross and were unsuccessful thanks to new barriers.

This new fencing is a result of President Trump’s national emergency declaration earlier this year. . .

(Read more from “New Video Shows the Updated Border Wall Is Working” HERE)

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Gulf Cartel Shoots at U.S. Border Patrol Agents

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Gulf Cartel gunmen fired what are believed to be AK-47s or similar weapons at U.S. Border Patrol agents on the Rio Grande. None were injured.

The shooting took place early Friday morning just south of Fronton, Texas. The agents were not struck by the gunfire, however, their boat was hit several times. The U.S. Border Patrol RGV Sector Office confirmed the incident to Breitbart Texas and advised it would issue additional information throughout the day.

Mexican authorities responded to the area after they received notification from the U.S. government about a shooting just west of Los Guerra, a Tamaulipas law enforcement source revealed to Breitbart Texas. Mexican authorities were not able to find any gunmen but did find “signs of activity.”

The area south of Fronton is a known smuggling corridor for the Gulf Cartel that is seeing an escalation of violence as rival factions continue to fight for turf. This week, rival convoys not far Camargo shot two innocent victims in a passenger bus. (Read more from “Gulf Cartel Shoots at U.S. Border Patrol Agents” HERE)

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Congress Authorized Overtime for Agents on ‘Diaper Patrol,’ but Not for Agents at the Border

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The message being conveyed to Border Patrol agents is that their most important job is to care for lawbreakers and smugglers, not to patrol against the cartels and previously deported criminal aliens. The job of “diaper patrol” is being prioritized over the job of protecting Americans from national security concerns. Nowhere is this more evident than in the pay incentives given to agents.

Due to complaints of abuse in the overtime pay system among some agents, Congress passed the Border Patrol Agent Pay Reform Act (BPAPRA) in 2014. The law abolished standard overtime pay for Border Patrol, and in its place, agents were given three options for their 5-day work days. They could work standard 8-hour shifts and receive base pay only or they could work 9-hour shifts and receive 12.5 percent over base pay, or 25 percent over base pay if they opt for 10-hour shifts. Any time an agent works outside the scheduled shift, i.e. 10 hours, they are not paid for the work, but are given “comp time” instead.

Given the crisis of hundreds of thousands of migrants surrendering at the border while thousands of “runners” get away from them, there is a need for all hands-on deck. Yet, thanks to the supplemental bill passed by Congress in June, agents only receive overtime for working at the processing centers babysitting the illegal aliens, but not for actually patrolling the line.

“As it stands now, we are averaging between 9-15 agents actually on the line … less than 30 percent of our station,” said one line agent in the Rio Grande Valley who spoke with CR on background because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “Because of the recent influx, overtime has been authorized to address the problem. What problem? Oh, the ‘humanitarian challenge,’ not the open border problem. Each week, each shift at the station is given a certain amount of hours. The hours ‘first come, first serve’ and also based on seniority (Union). We can choose to work 2 hours of overtime per day or come in on our day off and work a full shift. The only stipulation is IT HAS TO BE FOR THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS. i.e processing, record checks, sally port security, file creation, transportation, etc. IT CAN’T BE FOR BORDER SECURITY.”

How does this play out in the field?

“Say for example at the end of a shift you are involved in a “bailout” and illegals are running everywhere in the neighborhood … since this is your case you have to catch the illegals, get the vehicle towed to the station, do a vehicle packet, generate paperwork for the bailout, create a “case” for prosecution, etc. the list goes on. Well, by this time it is two hours after your shift ended and you finally get finished … guess what? you don’t qualify for overtime … you get comp time.

What’s the problem with comp time?

According to the agent I spoke to, “this comp time has to be prescheduled with the supervisors and in only extreme cases the agent is justified in unscheduled comp time. This hinders the work and leave a massive gap during shift change if agents are late to replace them or if they are working ‘traffic.’ If agents are incentivized to stay longer until they are relieved by the next shift, it will close the gaps. But without overtime, if they make a spontaneous decision to stay an extra hour until the next shift comes, they will not get comp time either. This is why most of them just leave and the cartels smugglers know this, which is why there are so many bad guys getting in between shift changes.”

On the other hand, thanks to the supplemental funding bill, agents who work an extra two hours at the processing center or who come in on their day off are paid overtime

What sort of message does this send about the priorities of the agency?

Another longer-serving veteran agent in the RGV told me that if overtime were approved for line work, agents would jump at the opportunity to do their core jobs. “Agents are dying to get out of those facilities and actually do what they were trained to do. Offering agents overtime only for humanitarian work but not for security work sends the wrong message to agents and makes it clear that Congress does not prioritize our key mission nor do members understand how many security problems are emanating from the border and the need for more manpower.”

I asked a CBP press official if he was concerned about the dichotomy between the humanitarian and security work in terms of overtime pay. He declined to go on the record, but noted that Congress only approved the funding for humanitarian work and that none of this was the decision of DHS. They simply utilized the funds that were given to them in the way they were earmarked. He also suggested that by putting in more hours at the processing center, it could potentially free up other agents to go to the line.

Both line agents I spoke to vigorously disputed that premise. “That’s complete BS, it never relieves another guy to hit the field,” bemoaned the more senior of the two Texas agents I spoke with. “Assignments are done ahead of time and are not spontaneous. If I send three agents out to do border security due to having three overtime processors, it doesn’t serve the purpose of overtime which is to handle the high volume of processing. Thus, all the extra work goes into the humanitarian work, not on the line. We must add or multiply our number of agents processing, not swap them out. If anything, the supplemental – by funding more humanitarian work and not border security – has placed even more mandates on agents to divert more manpower away from the line.”

The other agent who often does night shifts noted that he has not seen “any difference in terms of the number of agents in the field since passage of the supplemental. The entire purpose of that bill was for diaper patrol, not for Border Patrol.”

There is another budget bill that will pass Congress in September, but once thing is clear: If the border crisis does get addressed, it will all be about more funding for caring for illegal immigrants rather than for doing what the Border Patrol was created to do. (For more from the author of “Congress Authorized Overtime for Agents on ‘Diaper Patrol,’ but Not for Agents at the Border” please click HERE)

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Senator Reveals Heinous Criminals Released via ‘Catch-And-Release’ at Border

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The Department of Homeland Security treats the expanded “Flores” decree like God’s word, releasing any illegal alien who crosses the border with a child, even if border personnel can’t confirm identities, criminal records, or whether they are threats Americans or to the children they’re using as golden tickets.

Senator James Lankford, R-Okla., announced at yesterday’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing that border agents told him, on his recent trip to the border, that they found in two separate incidents that an alleged murderer and a convicted pedophile had each been released with a kid as part of the expanded Flores catch-and-release deadline of 20 days.

In one case, “they released an adult with a child and then found out two weeks later that that adult had a murder warrant in their home country, and they just released him into the country, and they could do nothing about it.” In another case, “they had released an adult traveling with a child and then found out after they were released when they got their criminal records in from home country that, that was a convicted pedophile from that country now traveling with a child somewhere in our country, and because we couldn’t detain them for longer than 20 days and we couldn’t get those criminal records, they’re released in the country, and they’re traveling with a child.”

When Lankford asked acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan whether border personnel were able to verify criminal status within the arbitrary 20-day deadline by the courts, he answered, “Not efficiently.”

The reality is that these people are coming straight out of rural Central America and countries with extremely unreliable data. All they have to do is give a name and they are home free, thanks to a court order that defies the 1996 immigration law passed unanimously by the Senate stating that these people “shall be detained.”

Thus, the threat of those coming in as “runners” and “gotaways” while Border Patrol is strategically tied down by the cartels with the family units is obvious. All of those with massive criminal records who were previously deported now have a freer lane than ever to come right back in.

But it’s even more disquieting that would-be criminal migrants are so emboldened by the notion that we will give amnesty to anyone with a kid that a number of those coming with family units are criminals. Every day, I see stories from CBP on how they caught criminals, particularly those convicted of child sex crimes, coming in openly with groups surrendering to agents.

Just yesterday, for example, Border Patrol arrested a previously deported Guatemalan who had been “convicted of Lewd or Lascivious Conduct and Failure to register as a Sex Offender on July 31, 2015, in Jacksonville, Florida.” According to Border Patrol in Tucson, the alien convict, 52-year-old Pedro Nolasco-Garcia, was traveling “with” a group of 16 women and children who surrendered to agents.

I asked a border agent why someone would be so dumb as to come in knowing that CBP will discover his record. He told me that he is forced to release criminals or people whose status could not be verified all the time because of the rush to release anyone who comes with a child. “The entire focus is on treatment of the children, to the detriment of not only America’s security, but these children as well,” said the agent, who patrols the hardest-hit areas of the Rio Grande Valley. The agent in Texas, who is on an evidence collection team and administers fingerprints, told CR that they are catching many adult males who come with one child (not an entire family fleeing persecution) who think that despite their criminal record, they will benefit from catch-and-release.

“And they are not entirely wrong,” said the veteran agent, who must remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

“In every single group, almost without fail, there is someone with a criminal record, typically males with single kids,” the agent said. “There is a wide misconception about the majority of these people being females. They are overwhelmingly male. While we try to prioritize referrals for prosecution based on criminal history, we only have so many computers we can utilize and so many staff members.”

When I asked him if that means there are those with confirmed criminal records, even with convictions in the U.S., who have been released, he said, “Absolutely. … They are given a notice to appear in court like anyone else.”

According to Department of Homeland Security investigators, in a letter from DHS to a member of the House Oversight Committee obtained by CR, there were enough criminal convictions (just from their previous time in the U.S.) among the January 2019 caravan members to account for roughly one quarter of the entire group! Homeland Security Investigations identified a total of 860 people with U.S. criminal convictions among the 3,345 people who left Honduras, including “22 individuals convicted of assault or aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, 27 individuals convicted of sexual offenses.” They also identified 47 gang members.

“So many of those coming here now have no records in the NCIC and are from countries that don’t share information with us,” said the agent I spoke to. “We literally have no idea who they are before we release them. They just give us a random name and birthdate and we have no way of verifying it.”

Why is the federal government giving foreign nationals a right to invade with such a dangerous scam of using children when the law actually says the opposite? Nothing in the Constitution can ever compel such carnage, but this policy emanated from a single California judge expanding the original settlement, which a Texas judge agreed doesn’t apply to cartel smuggling. And consider that 97.7 percent of family units are not even coming through California. Most are entering in Texas!

Also, consider the fact that well over 208,000 aliens have been released since Dec. 21, and we have no idea who they are. Thankfully, Border Patrol catches murderers, sex offenders, and gang members every day. But if those are the fish that are caught, one can imagine how many are in that pond and how few we catch when the net is so small and thin. (For more from the author of “Senator Reveals Heinous Criminals Released via ‘Catch-And-Release’ at Border” please click HERE)

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Child Taken into Custody from Border-Crosser After DNA Test Reveals They’re Not Related

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U.S. immigration authorities say they have safely brought a child into custody after a DNA proved that he was brought to the border by someone not related to him.

In an Instagram post published Tuesday night, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) showed a picture of a Border Patrol agent holding a small child at a border facility in Texas earlier this month.

“On July 17, McAllen USBP agents encountered a group of 12 people comprised of family units and unaccompanied children who turned themselves in,” the post explains. “Record checks revealed an individual traveling with his alleged son had 2 previous immigration arrests in El Paso Sector just in the past month. Given the recent apprehensions and the age of the child, Agents requested the assistance of [Homeland Security Investigations] to administer a rapid DNA test.”

“The test revealed there is no parent-child relationship,” CBP concluded. “The man admitted he was not the child’s father, but knew the mother and had permission to the take the child. The man admitted that it is common knowledge in Honduras that if you bring a child, you will be released.”

View this post on Instagram

A Border Patrol agent holds a migrant child at the Central Processing Facility in Donna, TX. Behind the photo: On July 17, McAllen USBP agents encountered a group of 12 people comprised of family units and unaccompanied children who turned themselves in. Record checks revealed an individual traveling with his alleged son had 2 previous immigration arrests in El Paso Sector just in the past month. Given the recent apprehensions and the age of the child, Agents requested the assistance of HSI to administer a rapid DNA test. The test revealed there is no parent-child relationship. The man admitted he was not the child’s father, but knew the mother and had permission to the take the child. The man admitted that it is common knowledge in Honduras that if you bring a child, you will be released.

A post shared by US Customs & Border Protection (@customsborder) on

This is far from an isolated incident. When the Department of Homeland Security started rapid DNA tests at the border in May, one official claimed that the pilot program found that 30 percent of tested “family units” turned out to be fake. In June, DNA tests turned up 24 false parental claims in just a few days, according to acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan. Rapid DNA tests even exposed a false parenthood claim of a six-month-old baby in May.

“Our goal with rapid DNA testing remains twofold,” said ICE Homeland Security Investigations Executive Associate Director Derek Benner in a statement last month. “First, to protect children from being smuggled across the border by ensuring they are with their parents and not being used as pawns by individuals attempting to exploit immigration loopholes. Second, to identify and stop the criminal organizations that are generating false documents and supporting child smuggling.”

The crisis at America’s southern border drags on, with the Rio Grande Valley sector setting an all-time annual record for border apprehensions. (For more from the author of “Child Taken into Custody from Border-Crosser After Dna Test Reveals They’re Not Related” please click HERE)

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Border Patrol Official Makes Stunning Claim About U.S. Citizen Detained by CBP

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Brian Hastings, Chief of Law Enforcement at the U.S. Border Patrol, made a stunning claim on Thursday about the U.S. citizen who was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for three weeks, saying that the individual never claimed to be an American.

Hastings remark came in response to a question from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) about the detained U.S. citizen, Francisco Erwin Galicia, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on some of the Trump administration’s policies on the border.

“I can give you some preliminary: the individual came through the Falfurrias checkpoint, he came through with the other illegal aliens, the individual claimed to be a Mexican national who was born in Reynosa, Mexico,” Hastings said. “Throughout the process, and while he was with Border Patrol, he claimed to be a citizen of Mexico with no immigration documents to be in or remain in the U.S.”

“Upon further investigation, we also found he had a border crossing card and that border crossing card he had used 53 times to cross the border into the U.S. which gives us further indication that he was not a U.S. citizen,” Hastings continued. “At no time in Border Patrol custody did he say that he was a U.S. citizen.”

(Read more from “Border Patrol Official Makes Stunning Claim About U.S. Citizen Detained by CBP” HERE)

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Illegal Aliens Storm Border, Assault Numerous Border Agents

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By The Blaze. One of the busiest ports of entry on the southern United States border had to be temporarily closed on Friday after a large group of immigrants stormed the border and confronted Border Patrol agents.

Nearly 50 migrants attempted to illegally enter the U.S. Friday morning by storming the border in “waves,” Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. . .

“At about 4 a.m. [Friday], a group of 47 undocumented individuals attempted to illegally enter the United States in three waves via the Pharr International Bridge. Ignoring commands to stop, the group suddenly rushed the temporary barricades, bent metal poles and disabled the concertina wire affixed to the barrier,” CBP said.

The migrants ignored commands to “stop,” bypassed blockade structures, and confronted immigration agents. Several male migrants reportedly assaulted officers, and even attempted to grab their “protective devices,” according to KGBT-TV. . .

In all, authorities apprehended 16 individuals, two of which were charged with interference, KGBT reported. Mexican authorities apprehended the remaining migrants. (Read more from “Illegal Aliens Storm Border, Assault Numerous Border Agents” HERE)

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Illegal Aliens Try to Rush into U.S. in ‘Waves,’ Spark Showdown with CBP Agents

By New York Post. One of the biggest ports of entry along the US-Mexico border had to be shut down on Friday after a group of undocumented immigrants — nearly 50 of them — attempted to rush into the United States in “waves,” according to federal officials. . .

Several CBP officers were assaulted during the mayhem but expected to be OK. They had to deploy tear gas and pepper balls in order to stop the group. (Read more from “Illegal Aliens Try to Rush into U.S. in ‘Waves,’ Spark Showdown with CBP Agents” HERE)

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Assaults Against Border Agents Rising; Few Attackers Are Prosecuted

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While Republicans trip over themselves to condemn President Trump’s tweets attacking Hamas supporter Ilhan Omar, they continue to do nothing for victims of illegal immigration or for law enforcement. The more they allow Democrats to focus on the needs of illegal aliens rather than those of Americans, the more border agents are being assaulted without any response from our government. Very few illegal aliens are being prosecuted for anything, including assaulting border agents.

What is the message being sent to the cartels and illegal aliens? That they are now a protected class here and we will do nothing to counter their behavior. Sergio Tinoco, a supervisor border agent in the Rio Grande Valley, tells me that agents patrolling the river are getting attacked with rocks as the smugglers become emboldened by the lack of response or prosecutions.

“I work in the area in south Texas where of course we have the Rio Grande River as our actual border,” said Tinoco on my podcast last Thursday. “We have a riverine unit, a boat crew that patrols up and down the river. Mind you, the border is directly somewhere in the center or quasi-center of that river, so we ourselves and our agents cannot engage with anyone on the Mexican riverbank. We just can’t. Our rules of engagement do not allow that. The cartels know this; the smugglers know this. And of course, there’s a lot of high brush here in south Texas, and daily, we have smugglers, we have coyotes that will throw rocks at our riverine crews, at our agents, do everything they possibly can to harm them and to hurt them because they want them out of the area so that they can either bring their illicit drugs through or they can bring in the illegal immigrants across the river.”

You read that correctly. Belligerent terrorist groups that the State Department refuses to designate as such can now throw rocks at our agents knowing that it will cause them to retreat in our own territory, thereby allowing them to get in their human and drug contraband. They are certain we will not retaliate.

Agent Tinoco says they are left with few options. They must either retreat or try to
“pepper them with some type of CS gas pellets” and hope they will disperse. “This is a dangerous task that we encounter every single day.”

Tinoco also told me that not enough of these people are being prosecuted. “If any of us is assaulted, we would want that individual to be punished. I’m sure that if a citizen in … another part of America … I’m sure that if that individual was assaulted, everybody in that community would be seeking justice. And that’s all our agents … that’s all we ask for. We ask for the exact same thing that any other citizen that we’re protecting would ask for, and sadly we don’t get that as often as we would like. “

Tinoco noted that this is what “lends to the downfall of our morality where eventually you’ll start hearing agents say, ‘Why even report this to someone? Nothing’s going to happen.’ And that’s a very bad situation to be in because you want to still encourage our agents to report everything.”

Jaeson Jones, retired captain of the Texas Rangers’ Border Security Operations Center (BSOC) , told me that border agents are often told to go to Texas authorities to push for prosecutions because the feds won’t take the cases. “Today, it is routine to see state charges filed in border-related cases not taken by the feds – everything from pursuits, assaults, aggravated assaults, and smuggling charges etc.”

Jones recalled an incident in south Texas involving a Border Patrol agent who had been assaulted by an illegal alien during an apprehension. The agent was injured, yet federal prosecutors didn’t take the case. “The Texas Ranger captain who was commanding the one-week joint border mission learned of this assault and was incredulous, “What do mean they won’t accept charges?” he asked loudly with clear anger in his voice. When he heard the news from the supervising agent assigned to the command post, the captain turned to his lieutenant and said go find out if one of our men has been injured, then that suspect is going to jail … do you understand? Within a few hours, the suspect was booked into the Hidalgo County, Texas, jail for assault on a police officer.”

It turns out, according to CBP data, that assaults on CBP personnel have roughly doubled over the past two fiscal years relative to the previous few years. Yet, surprisingly, the use of force against illegal aliens is down. Those two stats are no coincidence, according to one agent in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley who must remain anonymous because he’s not authorized to speak to the media.

“The cartel scouts are telling the illegal immigrants to fight us. If they win, great, they get away or enable others in the area to get away. If they lose, they claim excessive use of force. I was just recently attacked by a Salvadoran couple at the river as part of a group of several dozen who got away while they tussled with me. My military and jujitsu training kicked in and I overpowered them, but I sustained minor injuries to my face. In this case, they were charged, but only received time served. They do not fear prosecution, and they know we have weak rules of engagement. If you don’t know how to fight hand-to-hand, you are out of luck.”

Indeed, the entire impetus for this border crisis was when the politicians and media supplanted the rule of law with virtue-signaling to ensure that illegal aliens are exempted from prosecution because they will be separated from their children, even though in many cases, they children are not theirs.

There might be no consequences for illegal aliens and their smugglers invading our border. But the American people and the border agents are feeling all of the consequences. (For more from the author of “Assaults Against Border Agents Rising; Few Attackers Are Prosecuted” please click HERE)

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Border Patrol Agents Put AOC to Shame with Video Tour After She Insists Detainees Are Drinking from Toilets

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Arizona Border Patrol shared a video tour of their facility this week, directly refuting claims about the conditions in the facility made by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y). . .

The Arizona Border Patrol posted the video Wednesday and captioned it, “Here is a look at the inside of a #BorderPatrol processing center with Chief Patrol Agent of #TucsonSector Roy Villareal.”

In the video, Villareal can be seen showing well-stocked supply closets, filled with medical supplies, clothing, and personal hygiene supplies. A supply cart full of food, baby formula, and blankets can also be seen.

In extremely heated remarks, Ocasio-Cortez said that she witnessed horrible treatment during her visits to the detention centers.

She alleged that young children did not have access to clean diapers, and insisted that many detainees also reportedly went without ample access to clean water or food — even claiming that some were told to drink from the toilet. The freshman lawmaker also referred to the facilities as “concentration camps,” a term that did not go over well with those lawmakers on either side of the aisle. (Read more from “Border Patrol Agents Put AOC to Shame with Video Tour After She Insists Detainees Are Drinking from Toilets” HERE)

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Cuban Caravan Attempts to Rush Texas Border as Non-Central American Migrant Numbers Soar

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Two groups of mainly Cuban nationals attempted to rush the Hidalgo port of entry by running across the Hidalgo International Bridge near McAllen, Texas, late Tuesday evening, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

According to a CBP official in an emailed statement, “At about 6:50 p.m. on Tuesday, July 3, U.S. Customs and Border Protection deployed officers and concertina wire to temporarily close the Hidalgo International Bridge in response to multiple groups of undocumented aliens that had attempted to enter the port without inspection.”

The international bridge divides Hidalgo County, Texas, from the very violent Mexican city of Reynosa, which is the epicenter of much of the cartel activity of Cártel del Golfo.

Customs agents temporarily suspended pedestrian and vehicular traffic for roughly two hours. Then, another group of “approximately 50 undocumented aliens attempted entry without inspection at Hidalgo Bridge at 12:24 a.m. on Thursday, July 4.” This time, CBP went a step further and redeployed the “port hardening” measures “at mid-bridge.”

According to one Spanish-language source based in Tamaulipas, the first group was composed of 37 Cuban nationals. CBP confirmed with CR that “it appears both groups were primarily Cuban nationals.”

Recently, Cuban migration through the land border has been increasing so much that they are now taking over much of the street-level crime in cities like Juarez. In May, Kyle Williamson, special agent in charge of the DEA in El Paso, told CR, “The Cubans are pretty much occupying all of the motels in town and, together with the Hondurans, are working the street-level drug trafficking.”

Jaeson Jones, former captain of the Texas Rangers’ Border Security Operations Center, told me there is something bigger going on. “You could never get away with this without the Reynosa faction of the Gulf Cartel slaughtering the heck out of them,” said the former Texas Department of Public Safety officer, who conducted many counter-narcotics operations in Hidalgo County. “They clearly did this with the permission of the cartel in order that they can distract from the drug loads passing between the ports of entry at the time. This is a common tactic. The bigger the load, the bigger the distraction. This is especially true with the Cubans who are involved in organized crime now in Mexico.”

The fact that CBP’s Office of Field Operations is now deploying resources at the midpoint of an international bridge is an important development. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) always has the ability to prevent migrants from coming ashore. There is no reason why the military and Border Patrol can’t do the same between the ports by holding the line in the river itself and turning back anyone who attempts to cross. The same hold-the-line strategy that is working at the ports could likely work between the ports, at least in Texas, where the river is the international border.

The news about the Cuban immigrants comes at a time when non-Central American illegal immigrants are increasing, as the numbers from the three Central American countries have declined off their peak in May. CBP announced today that 1,000 Haitians have been apprehended in the Del Rio sector alone since June 10. “This demographic is unique in that most are family units with a biological minor child who is a national of a third country, usually in South America,” said CBP in a statement. “About 800 of the 1,000 apprehensions are members of a family unit, and include over 230 minor children who are nationals of a third country such as Brazil and Chile. Many of these family units have resided in Chile and other South American countries for several years prior to departing for the United States.”

Indeed, the numbers from those other South American countries have been increasing over the past few weeks. Last week, 650 Brazilian nationals were caught at the Texas border, almost double the number from the week of June 12, according to Texas data exclusively obtained by CR from a Border Patrol agent who must remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

Additionally, 35 Chilean nationals were apprehended last week, up from just one two weeks ago. Also, 80 Venezuelans were caught over the same week, a number that has been steadily rising and lends credence to concerns that the failed nation-state will be the next migration shoe to drop at our border. Then there is the steady flow of Africans and even Middle Easterners. Another 54 Bangladeshis were caught at the Texas border, according to the same weekly apprehension report.

One thing is clear: Even if the downward trend of migration from the Central American northern triangle continues, there are endless numbers of migrants from other countries who would love to take advantage of catch-and-release, as long as our government continues the policy of allowing them to land on our side of the river in the first place. (For more from the author of “Cuban Caravan Attempts to Rush Texas Border as Non-Central American Migrant Numbers Soar” please click HERE)

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