Migrant Count Jumps 21 Percent in Texas
with Bigger Vaults in El Paso and the Valley
Capitol Inside
March 25, 2024
Migrant apprehensions jumped more than Governor Greg Abbott may have expected in February in Texas after a sharp drop the month before in a surprise development that prompted him to declare a tentative victory for state military forces at the Rio Grande.
“Our stiff resistance is working,” Abbott asserted a month ago in a post on X. "Texas will continue to hold the line.”
But the U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported on Monday that federal agents encountered 53,461 migrants in the Lone Star State last month - a vault of more than 21 percent over the tally here in January - despite an escalation in troops at the river and the installation of spiked fencing along the banks in selective places.
"More Texas National Guard soldiers deployed and more razor wire installed at the border this weekend in El Paso," the governor wrote on Monday on X. "We continue to reinforce border barriers and repel any illegal immigrants.
Texas is holding the line."
Abbott's military strategists appeared to be chasing numbers - however - with the new focus on El Paso after concentrating border security operations in Eagle Pass along a three-mile strip of the Rio Grande there.
According to the federal agency, the number of migrants who were apprehended in February soared 37 percent in El Paso. The Border Patrol intercepted 23,917 migrants in the El Paso sector last month after logging 17,515 there in January. The migrant count increased almost 63 percent in the Rio Grande Valley last month with 11,947 apprehended there.
Abbott might find some consolation in the fact that migrant apprehensions went down 2.2 percent in February in the Del Rio sector that's anchored by Eagle Pass. The BP encountered 14,109 migrants in the Del Rio-Eagle Pass areas last month. More than 71,000 migrants were apprehended in the Del Rio sector in December when almost 126,000 were taken into custody in the five Texas regions combined.
Eagle Pass has evolved after three years into the unofficial headquarters and command center for Abbott's $10 billion mission at the border Operation Lone Star. The state even plans to build a small-scale military park in Eagle Pass where the Texas Guard has occupied Shelby Park on the Rio Grande for several months and blocked access to the river for federal agents who need it to carry out their jobs.
Abbott, who's long claimed to support the rule of law, has openly defied a U.S. Supreme Court order that gave the federal government the green light to tear down the fencing on the river. Abbott responded by increasing the razor wire barriers and vowing to do it the way he sees fit based on the formal assertion that Texas is under invasion from the south.
But the apprehension counts in January and February show that that the migrants who the state's has managed to "repel" in Eagle Pass based on the governor's rhetoric have simply shifted paths to other areas on the Mexican border in Texas and states to the west.
Migrant tallies in the Tuscon and San Diego areas have gone up substantially in the past two months as a possible ramification of added resistance in Texas. Abbott says he's protecting Texans by driving migrants further to the west. But that simply means that large numbers of migrants will be entering Texas from western states as long as the Lone Star State is the land of opportunity for them and businesses here are eager to put them to work for lower wages than they have to pay locals with papers.
San Diego experienced a 28 percent jump in migrant apprehensions in February. But the count declined 2 percent in Tuscon last month like it did in Eagle Pass.
Abbott and his GOP allies in Austin are counting on the new Texas law known as Senate Bill 4 will slow immigration to the state to a trickle by giving state and local police the ability to arrest people who cross the Rio Grande illegally and to deport those who choose to avoid jail here.
But SB 4 has been gummed up in the courts and could for an indefinite amount of time because it would give states a green light to start taking over federal functions based on unsubstantiated sound bytes and buzz words.
The Texas Department of Public Safety says it probably would only enforce SB 4 in border areas even that the measure applies to undocumented residents statewide. Police departments in the largest Texas cities have given the impression they won't be enforcing the new law in their locales.
Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith, a Republican who serves as president of the Texas Sheriff’s Association, suggested in an Associated Press story during the weekend that SB 4 could be an invitation for trouble in East Texas and other parts of the state that aren't on or near the border.
“Our office won’t have much to do with Senate Bill 4 unless we’re working with one of our brother sheriffs or sister sheriffs on the border because you have to be able to prove they came across the border illegally," Smith said. "And unfortunately you can’t do that this far into the state of Texas without violating some of their rights.
“If we start going and talking to everybody and asking for papers, where do we stop?" Smith added.
Abbott and the Republican lawmakers who approved SB 4 in special session last fall have strenuously insisted that it's not a so-called "show me your papers" law.
more to come ... |
