Inspectors finding more people hidden in rail cars amid border crisis

Customs officers who inspect freight trains coming over the border from Mexico into El Paso, Texas, are seeing a sharp increase in the number of people caught trying to sneak into the country by jumping rail cars.

Customs and Border Protection officers who inspect vehicles, trucks, and trains crossing the border from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, into El Paso have discovered 292 noncitizens hidden atop, inside, and in the undercarriage of international trains since Oct. 1, the start of the agency’s year. Those aboard were children and adults who had hoped to use the railroad as a way to get smuggled into the United States.

The numbers are up from the same time a year earlier, when 181 people were caught in El Paso riding the trains over the border. The 292 arrested in the first seven months of 2021 is nearly six times higher than the 50 people caught in all of 2019.

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A Customs and Border Protection officer with a child who had been riding aboard a freight train passing from Mexico into the U.S.

“It is happening almost every time CBP officers in El Paso process an arriving freight train from Mexico. Migrants are discovered attempting to use the railroad system to enter the country undetected,” according to a CBP statement.

CBP sends trains through an X-ray machine that is nonintrusive, and it also uses trained dogs to search for anything unusual aboard the trains, including people or drugs.

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The 60% hike in illegal freight train riders comes as Border Patrol agents have seen the number of people try to cross the border illegally double between January and March. An unknown number of those taken into custody for coming over the southern border without permission will go on to seek asylum.

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Federal law enforcement officers in El Paso discovered a person hiding under a freight train as it made its way over the U.S.-Mexico border.

CBP said the train riders are at risk of serious injury or death by climbing atop the tall cars, oftentimes while they are moving.

“We cannot stress how dangerous of a practice this is and we encourage any considering this to not proceed with their plans,” CBP Director of Field Operations Hector Mancha said in a statement. “People are climbing on rail cars and hiding in places not designed to accommodate human beings. Fortunately we have yet to encounter anyone who has been maimed while attempting this but I am afraid that at some point we will.”

Approximately 6,500 rail cars come across the border at the Paso del Norte international bridge monthly and are inspected by CBP before being allowed to continue into the country. They typically come across between midnight and 6 a.m. local time, which makes it more dangerous.

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers discover someone hiding atop a freight train crossing from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, into El Paso, Texas.

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“The potential for a misstep is greater when it is dark and visibility is limited,” said Mancha.

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