EL PASO, Texas — Hundreds of troops who were surged into El Paso on military transport aircraft this week have regained control of the border following an influx of tens of thousands of immigrants that prompted a state of emergency.
Soldiers, as well as state police, were rushed to the new epicenter of the southern border crisis in El Paso’s downtown. Within days, they aided Border Patrol in taking back a mile-and-a-half stretch of the international border that last week went essentially unchecked as groups of hundreds, including a couple groups with more than 1,000 immigrants, bombarded fenceless parts of the El Paso border and burst into the city.
“Our primary reason for being here is attempting to block and turn back — whether it’s a small group of two to three or if it’s a very large group,” said Maj. Michael Perry, Texas National Guard public affairs officer. “We’re there to deter, interdict, apprehend and refer [to Border Patrol] when somebody makes it over.”
The scene Thursday afternoon as Border Patrol agents allowed 10 immigrants through the gate at a time was in stark contrast with last week’s influx of a thousand people at a time coming into areas without newly added barbed wire.
INSIDE THE EL PASO CITY BLOCK WHERE BIDEN’S BORDER CRISIS FLOWS INTO THE STREETS
3 senior Border Patrol agents tell me agents have been pulled from the “line.” One guy at DC HQ was getting panicked texts from BP officials in El Paso.
As a result, groups that cross border are walking across the highway into the city, evading arrest. pic.twitter.com/HA8kVBKSPy
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) December 16, 2022
Some immigrants who made it through without being apprehended walked freely along the Border Highway that runs parallel to the border. Some dashed across the highway, so much so that the city put up a warning on digital highway signs for drivers to watch for people running through traffic.
Nearly 10% of more than 5,000 soldiers deployed to southeastern border towns were airlifted on several Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft at the beginning of the week and dropped into West Texas. Up to 200 additional troops have since been activated and begun to arrive in El Paso. The new additions are specifically in response to the governor’s order, which was affected by the city’s emergency declaration on Dec. 17.
“We have already moved 400 from anywhere between Brownsville and Eagle Pass,” said Perry, who was aboard one of the four-engine cargo planes coming from the Rio Grande Valley.
Soldiers dropped onto the border and swiftly installed stacked layers of concertina wire along unfenced parts of the border downtown. The wire is to prevent immigrants from walking up the riverbank and from potentially entering the country undetected.
On Wednesday, seven immigrants on the Mexican side of the river began to cross toward the soldiers. Despite being heavily armed, the military is not authorized to take lethal action to deter or respond to attempts to illegally enter the United States.
“The soldiers were expressing it’s dangerous to cross here. It is not a legal entry point,” said National Guard 1st Sgt. for Public Affairs Suzanne Ringle. “The family still crossed at the coercing of the media guys behind them.”
“They came up to the wire, and in Spanish, they were requesting to us and Border Patrol that we move the wire,” said Perry. “Of course we didn’t move it, and we instructed them — we have a message, and we’re putting [it] out over bull horns in that particular area that just simply says it’s very unsafe to cross here. Go across in an appropriate location. We don’t tell them where to do that because it’s obviously a port of entry, but we don’t speak on behalf of [U.S. Customs and Border Protection].”
The wire now directs any person who does cross to a specific area of the border where a massive gate in the 30-foot slatted wall can open to allow people illegally in the U.S. on the other side of the fence to be taken into custody.
“We’re at a location where the wall ends, so we’re able to set up a perimeter so where the influx of migrants coming in will be minimal, and we can actually push them to a point so that Border Patrol can process them effectively — so basically pushing them from one point where they would be able to come in freely,” said Texas Department of Public Safety Public Information Officer Sgt. Eliot Torres. “We’re pushing them to an area where there’s a gate and Border Patrol comes in, and they’re able to take vanloads of people so that they can be processed properly.”
Perry oversees communications for military operations under Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) Operation Lone Star, an ongoing initiative to bolster border security as federal agents in the Border Patrol have been pulled from the border to transport, process, and watch over record-high numbers of immigrants who have illegally crossed and been taken into custody.
Abbott directed Texas Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer to prepare the military for deployments and relocations ahead of the Dec. 21 conclusion of Title 42, said Perry.
For nearly three years, Title 42 has allowed border officials to turn away some immigrants immediately — though the Biden administration has expelled people at a far lower percentage than the Trump administration.
But the sudden influx of immigrants into El Paso in the weeks leading up to Dec. 21 came as a surprise to everyone.
It was enough to push the Democratic mayor of El Paso, Oscar Leeser, to finally declare a state of emergency on Dec. 17 after months of struggling to handle the 84,000 immigrants released in the city and being pushed by the White House to keep calm and not call for help.
The vast majority of soldiers deployed are from El Paso, according to Ringle. Sending in soldiers from the region was strategic and done to give them a chance to attend religious and holiday gatherings.
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“We have rotations worked out so everybody can get the appropriate pass and leave time that they need with their families,” Perry said. “As the leader, I’m actually not taking leave.”
