Texas Border Patrol agents fear that a six-foot alligator who lives in the Rio Grande, which migrants swim across daily to get into the United States from Mexico, may carry out a deadly attack.
Federal agents in Eagle Pass, Texas, have known about the reptile for several years, but say they have seen it more often in recent months at a section of the river where most migrants illegally cross in the region.
“It’s never snapped at anyone. The guys who work boat patrol see it every once and a while, and it checks them out,” Jon Anfinsen, the vice president of the National Border Patrol Council’s Del Rio chapter, told the Washington Examiner.
“So far, it hasn’t snapped at anybody or eaten a kid. I imagine if that were to happen, the wardens would go after it,” said Anfinsen.
Agents have not given the alligator a name, nor have residents in Piedras Negras, the Mexican city just over the river, likely because there is no other dangerous water creature it needs to be distinguished from.
The alligator is about six feet long and the only known large reptile living in this part of south-central Texas, according to local agents who spoke with the Washington Examiner on the condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to speak with media.
Anfinsen said the gator has been around for “years,” but may have been spotted hanging around Eagle Pass International Bridge 1 in May and June more than normal because the river at this part was higher than normal due to a dam being opened upstream.
Spanish media and Border Patrol have posted videos online of sightings and run-ins with the alligator. One such agent’s video taken in June shows agents parking their air boat and the gator swimming approximately 20 feet over to them.
“What a beauty. What’s going on, buddy,” an agent on boat patrol said in a video he first published on Facebook. “Goddamn. Perfect! I think he’s getting less scared of us. I think he’s getting less scared of us.”
Others have filmed the alligator lurking in the shallow waters on both sides of the river bank.
Anfinsen said the creature is indigenous to the region despite its rarity, and because of that they cannot remove it from the river, despite the danger it poses to migrants, locals, and federal officials.
“They can’t do anything about it,” said Anfinsen.
The Mexican state of Coahuila’s environment and urban development agency, issued a warning to the public in late May for people, including migrants, to be careful when going near or in the river.
At the time, hundreds of Central American migrant families were crossing near downtown Eagle Pass, right where the alligator was being seen. Hundreds of migrants from Central African nations also began crossing the border each week at the same point despite the risk of running across the gator.
One local Border Patrol agent who spoke anonymously said the sector has seen an uptick in crossings further upstream near Quemado, Texas, as well as the use of flotations. He said word got out of the risk of crossing near the gator and some smugglers changed how and where they were running people.
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