DEL RIO, Texas — The remote border town that made headlines last September as tens of thousands of Haitians crossed into it from Mexico has become the top destination for migrants and the epicenter of the border crisis.
Last month, 30,773 people were encountered illegally crossing the border in Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, which spans 240 miles of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico boundary. For each of the town of Del Rio’s 34,673 residents, one noncitizen was taken into custody.
“For us to be surpassing or being even remotely close to the numbers [the Rio Grande Valley is] getting, it’s just — it’s just crazy,” Jon Anfinsen, a Border Patrol agent who is union president of the National Border Patrol Council’s Del Rio chapter, said in an interview on the border Tuesday. “At the moment, though, our sector is busier or at least as busy as the Rio Grande Valley, which has never happened before.”
For years, the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas has been the busiest place for illegal immigration, in part because it’s the shortest distance from Central America.
But now, authorities are encountering more migrants in the Del Rio sector, one of nine monitored by the Border Patrol on the southern border, than any other — 10 times as many in the past three months than in the same period before the coronavirus pandemic.
The rising numbers in Del Rio signal that smugglers are shifting migrants, each of whom pays or are indebted $5,000 to $20,000 to get into the U.S., to cross through regions of the border where there is no wall or fence. For example, shortly after more than 100 miles of wall was installed around Yuma, Arizona, Border Patrol agents saw smugglers shift to new areas because they could not get large groups over the 30-foot-tall barrier.
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“For the most part, if you’re from Haiti, from West Africa, if you are from Cuba or Venezuela, they basically decided you’re going to cross through Del Rio. That’s it. And they’ve set up the infrastructure. They have people to speak, whatever extra, whatever languages they might need to help facilitate that,” Anfinsen said. “The cartels decide where everybody goes, and we’re just left to react to it.”
Last September, tens of thousands of people, primarily Haitians who had been directed here by the cartels, came across the border and into Del Rio in an unprecedented surge, setting up a makeshift camp under an international bridge with the hope of being released into the U.S. When Border Patrol agents and Texas state troopers moved to wall off the border and some migrants tried to get past, agents on horseback were wrongly accused on social media of “whipping” people, and President Joe Biden said people were “being strapped” in an “outrageous” way and vowed that “those people will pay.” Biden and top administration officials have not apologized or clarified the record in the five months since the incident.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, faulting the Biden administration’s handling of the situation, increasingly deployed Department of Public Safety troopers to the border last September as part of an initiative to help Border Patrol. Troopers have arrested more than 12,000 people for smuggling people into the country, Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican who represents parts of San Antonio and Austin, said speaking to reporters in Del Rio following a DPS briefing. Since last year’s deployment began, 10,000 state troopers and state National Guard soldiers have been deployed to the border to detain illegal immigrants who slip through parts of the border that the Border Patrol is unable to patrol.
A National Guard sergeant stationed in Del Rio who spoke with the Washington Examiner on the condition of anonymity this week said they see two to 30 people aided by cartel scouts cross the river at a time. Some groups surrender to the National Guard, which will detain the illegal immigrants until Border Patrol can take them into custody. Most crossings take place under the cover of night.
“At the end of the day, a lot of it is a BandAid on a gunshot wound if you can’t stop the flow and the federal government refused to turn people away,” said Roy. “We’ve got to have a serious conversation about Texas turning people away.”
The trouble for federal, state, and local law enforcement in Del Rio is that the town lacks the resources to handle the current numbers of migrants, partly because it is so remote. Del Rio is the largest town for 150 miles. The Rio Grande Valley, in contrast, comprises midsized towns along the border and has a total population of 1.4 million and numerous nonprofit organizations that help migrants and provide migrants who are released with transportation to destinations across the country.
Although all illegal immigrants encountered at the border are supposed to be immediately expelled back to Mexico as a result of a March 2020 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation meant to prevent the introduction and spread of the coronavirus in Border Patrol stations, roughly half were not returned in January.
While some illegal immigrants are immediately sent back into Mexico through a nearby port of entry, tens of thousands of others are taken into custody, processed, and either detained and removed from the country or are released into the U.S. Because some countries, including Venezuela and Cuba, have refused to repatriate their citizens and Mexican states will not take back certain demographics of migrants, the Border Patrol released 46,000 people from Del Rio and all sectors nationwide into the U.S. last month.
Border Patrol has roughly 1,500 agents and the capacity to detain 1,500 people across its stations. The closest station, located in Del Rio proper, can hold 117 people but frequently tops 500, according to Anfinsen.
Large white school buses and charter buses transport migrants day and night from Del Rio to other towns for processing at facilities 50 miles away in Eagle Pass, 180 miles away in Laredo, and sometimes further out. A tent facility with enough room to hold 500 people was erected in Eagle Pass last April but regularly tops 1,000 people inside.
Those released are let go on humanitarian parole and are traceable by the federal government, or they are placed in immigration court proceedings before being discharged. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on site at Border Patrol facilities may outfit a person with an ankle monitor or install a phone app, both of which are capable of tracking someone in the case they do not show up for legal proceedings down the road. The administration began trying to follow migrants better after losing track of 50,000 amid the chaos at the border.
Border Patrol works with local nongovernmental organizations that help and pay for migrants to fly or take buses to anywhere in the U.S. Del Rio has just one group helping migrants, compared to the Rio Grande Valley’s handful of organizations, another reason the government moves those in custody across the state.
But with federal law enforcement inundated encountering, transporting, and processing people in custody, the state of Texas and local law enforcement have moved in to fill the void on the border. It has come at a high cost.
Val Verde County Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez told visiting Republican state House and congressional lawmakers, as well as local ranchers, during a meeting this week that his deputies worked 12 drownings and nine traffic-related smuggling fatalities last year. In Brooks County, 70 miles north of the border, Sheriff Benny Martinez said his deputies have discovered 119 bodies last year, as well as 10 who were killed instantly when a smuggler crashed the vehicle — an indication of how many illegal immigrants slip past law enforcement at the border.
“There’s literally billions of dollars of additional costs that we’re having to incur as a state,” said state Rep. Matt Shaheen of Collin County, north of Dallas. “We’re having to deal with these issues in our schools … in our hospitals, our healthcare system.”
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“Texas is going to have to find a way to actually deter people from coming across and actually send people back, something states have not been doing. The past is now time. You have a historic situation,” said Texas state Rep. Matt Schaefer of East Texas.
