(UnitedVoice.com) – Congress went home for the holiday season and won’t be back until after the new year begins. Lawmakers left without coming to an agreement on more funding and policy changes for the border. The crisis at the southern frontier is now overwhelming Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
On December 18, there were approximately 4,000 migrants in CBP custody in Eagle Pass, Texas. An additional 4,000 crossed the border that day, breaking previous records. NewsNation spoke to agents who said it’s the worst migrant surge ever experienced in that area. The news organization reportedly captured images of groups of more than 100 people crossing into the US throughout the day.
The number of illegal crossings surpassed 10,000 encounters in a single day. CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller said that the migrant surge is “presenting a serious challenge to the men and women of” Border Patrol. He accused smugglers of “putting migrants into harm’s way” by bringing them into the country across dangerous routes, like “remote locations […] onto the tops of trains, or into the waters of the Rio Grande River.”
Acting Commissioner Miller called on Congress to give his agency more funding so that they can be better equipped to handle the surge and tackle the new ways smugglers are bringing the migrants into the country.
CBP recently shut down two international railroad crossings because of a surge in migrants on top of the cars. Mexico and the US worked together to stop the trains and arrest the people who were entering America illegally. They have also found that smugglers are dropping immigrants from places like China into the Arizona desert. The migrants then “overwhelm” local agents.
The migrant surge is so bad, the commissioner has had to move his agents away from other ports of entry to help in areas that are dealing with massive influxes. That is reportedly making the crisis even worse.
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