A top border official on Saturday said over 800 criminal migrants, including dozens of sex offenders, were apprehended within the Rio Grande Valley in Texas so far in fiscal year 2021.
Brian Hastings, who oversees Border Patrol operations for the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, said his agency, in recent months, has arrested 861 illegal immigrants who were later found to have other criminal offenses, of whom 92 were sex offenders, and 63 had gang ties, he wrote in a tweet. The law enforcement official included a photograph of a Salvadoran man who was taken into custody with a prior conviction for murder.
Crossing our Borders
Within the copious amounts of groups being encountered in #RGV, a Salvadoran man with a prior conviction for murder was discovered. FYTD RGV agents have arrested over 861 criminal aliens, to include 63 gang members and 92 sex offenders.#CrossingOurBorders pic.twitter.com/9MKD9cYPI1
— Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings (@USBPChiefRGV) March 27, 2021
In a subsequent post, Hastings said his agency recently encountered five large groups of illegal immigrants in the Rio Grande Valley, wrangling a total of 539 individuals into custody. Ninety-three of the apprehended individuals were unaccompanied children, and Hastings added that 18,000 solo minors have been apprehended since the beginning of the fiscal year.
EXCLUSIVE: BORDER PATROL RELEASED 2,000 MIGRANTS INTO US WITHOUT NOTICES TO APPEAR IN COURT
Hastings’s announcements follow a report from Customs and Border Protection that law enforcement throughout the country encountered upward of 100,000 attempted illegal crossings in February, compared to 78,000 who tried to do the same in January. Drug seizures also jumped 50% with unprecedented confiscations of methamphetamine and heroin.
The Biden administration is grappling with a border crisis and facing bipartisan criticism for its handling of the influx. The president’s team has scrambled to find additional facilities to house unaccompanied children as experts estimate more than 117,000 solo minors will make their way into the United States by the end of the year.
Border patrol has taken drastic measures, such as releasing 2,000 migrants into the U.S. without notices to appear in court, effectively relying on them to hold themselves accountable for illegally entering the country.
“I thought it was 150 people that they have released without a Notice to Appear, but it actually is getting now closer to 2,000 people they released,” Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Texas, told the Washington Examiner last week. “I told the person, ‘Repeat it one more time.’ Two thousand. I thought it was bad when it was 150, but it’s now closer to 2,000 people.”
Biden administration officials earlier in the month acknowledged they are unable to keep up with the unprecedented surge at the U.S.-Mexico border.
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“We are not in a place where we’re going to be able to meet the demand that we are seeing,” an official said. “Every day, we are bringing new beds online, but it takes a lot of time, unfortunately, in terms of our licensed care-provider network. We are aggressively adding hundreds of beds by the week to our care provider network.”
CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
