Border Patrol stops releasing migrants to town that called in Abbott buses to DC

“[Border Patrol] told us to expect 150 [releases] a day. We got the first busloads of them, and then we raised Cain, and then the governor came out with his program,” McLaughlin said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “And the people they were going to be releasing in Uvalde, they are now processing and taking back to Eagle Pass. They’re not releasing them in Uvalde.”

McLaughlin said senior Border Patrol agents involved in the planning informed him that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told them during a call Sunday “not to discuss” with anyone, or even while out in public at restaurants, the changes in the government’s approach to releasing migrants along the border.

In addition, McLaughlin claimed that Mayorkas told Border Patrol agents that they should “highly encourage these people not to get on any buses going to Washington, D.C.”

“I think the government is trying to keep the governor’s bus program quiet because if they come up there, they get out on the steps of the Capitol, the whole world will see what we’re seeing in South Texas and along the southwest border every day,” McLaughlin said. “And that it is not all about family units and young children, which is a tragedy, no question. But all of a sudden, you’re going to see all these young adult-age males and females getting off buses, not families with kids. You’re going to see what we see. I don’t think they want that narrative seen.”

A DHS spokesman denied the mayor’s allegation, saying that Mayorkas “made no such statements” in the call with Border Patrol and nonprofit organizations Sunday. DHS did confirm that Mayorkas spoke with that group.

“There has been no change in CBP operations in Texas,” the DHS official added in a written statement.

TEXAS WILL BUS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO DC, ABBOTT SAYS

As Border Patrol began taking more illegal immigrants into custody near the border towns of Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas, last month, its own facilities and overflow tents exceeded capacity. Because Border Patrol stations on the border were overwhelmed, agents transported thousands in custody to other stations, up to 100 miles away. Normally, migrants would be processed and then transported back to Eagle Pass and released to the nonprofit organization Mission Border Hope.

But the Border Patrol began releasing people into Uvalde after Mission Border Hope exceeded its own capacity.

The releases into Uvalde stopped last week, when Abbott said Texas would begin busing migrants who had been released up to Washington, D.C., a move meant to put pressure on the Biden administration to address the crisis at the border. Abbott, a Republican, said that the state has readied up to 900 charter buses to transport migrants 1,700 miles from the state’s border with Mexico to Washington. The first bus arrived near the Capitol Wednesday.

McLaughlin immediately asked the state for buses and had two brought in.

“If you come to Uvalde — and we have a bus there to go to Washington, D.C. — I’m going to encourage you to get on that bus. I’m going to tell you all the opportunities that are available for you in Washington, D.C.; New York City; Pennsylvania; Boston; Baltimore. You’re close to all those areas,” McLaughlin said.

The Texas Division of Emergency Management, the state agency overseeing the busing operation, told the Washington Examiner late Wednesday that it had dispatched buses to multiple communities over the past six days.

However, TDEM spokesman Seth Christensen said that “a large majority of the communities that originally reached out for support through this operation have now said that the federal government has stopped dropping migrants in their towns since the governor’s announcement on Wednesday.”

McLaughlin said Eagle Pass, 40 miles away from Uvalde, now faces a direr situation as illegal crossing attempts continue to rise and are expected to further rise in May and June as the Biden administration stops turning away migrants under a public health measure imposed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

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“I hadn’t talked to the mayor this week. But when I talked to him last week, he was at his wit’s end since he didn’t know what he was going to do with so many being released in his community,” said McLaughlin.