Watch Smugglers Guide Massive Caravans of Migrants Into US Across Rio Grande
10:23 GMT 14.07.2022 (Updated: 10:44 GMT 14.07.2022)
© Photo : Bill Melugin/twitter
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A recent study by the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project found that the US-Mexico border is now the most dangerous land crossing on Earth. The report was released just days after 53 people were found dead in a sweltering tractor trailer full of migrants found abandoned in San Antonio, Texas.
US media has obtained footage showing suspected ‘coyote’ smugglers guiding streams of literally hundreds of migrants across the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, southwestern Texas in broad daylight, with no US Customs and Border Patrol agents seen anywhere in the vicinity.
“I mean they’re gonna keep coming based off how long that line looks,” a voice behind the camera says, adding that “there’s no Border Patrol.”
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, who posted the footage to Twitter, called the crossing “one of the most massive single groups we have ever witnessed.” He reported that one Texas National Guard Humvee had arrived at the scene to respond, with “more resources” called in after that. The fate of the migrants is unknown.
This is the moment the massive group first entered the water, led by a suspected cartel guide. This crossing seemed to go on endlessly. There was no Border Patrol on scene when they began arriving, only one TX National Guard humvee. More resources responding now. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/infY8H9omN
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) July 13, 2022
Later in the day, the crew filmed a second, smaller group crossing into Eagle Pass in the same spot, again led by a suspected cartel smuggler.
Another smaller group now crossing illegally into Eagle Pass, TX in the same spot. They are again being led by a cartel smuggler. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/qVT9PHiwhO
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) July 13, 2022
Federal authorities reported Over 2,200 illegal crossings in the Del Rio Sector of the border on Tuesday, with more than 13,000 crossings reported over a seven day period before that. CBP has yet to release the total encounters figures for June, but in May more than 239,000 people were caught by border agents attempting to enter the US.
On Tuesday, shortly before jetting off to Israel for a four day tour of the Middle East, President Joe Biden met with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to discuss joint efforts to halt organized people and drug smuggling.
Biden said Washington was making “historic investments in infrastructure modernization” across 2,000 miles of the border with Mexico, and that his recently passed infrastructure law had committed $3.4 billion “to major construction projects at the ports of entry between our two countries to make our border safe and more efficient for people, trade and commerce.”
“As you know, Mr. President, we need every country in the region to join us in tracking [the] multibillion-dollar smuggling industry that’s preying on our most vulnerable, including the 53 souls who died in a tractor trailer in San Antonio last month,” Biden added.
President Obrador indicated that Mexico had committed to invest $1.5 billion on border infrastructure over a three year period.
The crisis at the southern border has hounded the Biden administration from the first weeks of his presidency, with Republicans blaming him for rescinding nearly a dozen hardline Trump-era directives and executive orders on immigration and border security, including his signature border wall. In the months that followed, leaders in Mexico and Latin America said that these policies, combined with the Biden administration’s discussions about ‘rebuilding the asylum system’ and granting amnesty to the millions of immigrants already living illegally in the US, encouraged smugglers to advertise their services.
Last Thursday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott authorized his state’s National Guard and the Department of Public Safety to detain migrants caught crossing illegally into the US and to return them to border entry points after accusing the president of “refus[ing] to do his job and enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress.”
On July 1, a study published by the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project found that the US-Mexico border has become the most dangerous land frontier in the world, calculating that at least 728 migrants died during the trek from Mexico to the United States in 2021, more than double the number recorded in 2020, and saying that these figures were likely dramatically below the true but unrecorded numbers.
4 July 2022, 23:56 GMT
Late last month, a spokesman for the Customs and Border Patrol’s Union told reporters that the force’s morale was “in the toilet” thanks to President Biden’s border policies and statements by members of his administration and allies accusing agents of acting in a “racist” manner by doing their jobs.
Total CBP encounters at the border for fiscal year 2022 surpassed one million people in April, with the figures rapidly on their way to topping the 1.72 million enforcement encounters reported in fiscal year 2021, which ended in September.
At last month’s Summit of the Americas, Biden called the illegal immigration crisis a “challenge” that all the nations of the Western Hemisphere must play a role in solving. Biden’s initiative did not include any recognition of the deleterious role US foreign policy has played in destabilizing Latin America over the centuries, from supporting coups to funding ultra-right death squad militias, to invasions of countries refusing to bend to Washington’s will.
