Border Patrol Dealing With Increase in Central American Migrants

Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

As we noted on November 11, apprehensions of illegal migrants crossing the Southwest border along the Rio Grande are rising. We cited figures from the DHS website on November 10 indicating that the number of illegal aliens apprehended trying to cross our southwest border rose to 46,195 in October, compared with 39,501 in September and 37,048 in August.

A December 4 report from NBC News revealed that the surge in illegal aliens crossing the border has not abated. An NBC News crew recently spent two days with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials and interviewed a Border Patrol agent named Marlene Castro. Castro and her fellow agents had just intercepted a band of drug smugglers who abandoned their operation and retreated back across the border.

“They dropped their bundles of narcotics and went back into Mexico,” NBC News quoted Marlene Castro as saying. Though disappointed that they did not apprehended the smugglers, the agents did manage to recover 66 pounds of marijuana with a street value of approximately $53,000.

It became apparent to the reporters that Castro and her colleagues were dealing with a sudden surge of families from Central America who are running toward the border agents — not away from them.

This was a phenomenon we reported on in June 2015, when we cited statements made by agent Chris Cabrera, a spokesperson for the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) to Breitbart Texas.

Cabrera said that instead of hiding from Border Patrol agents to sneak into the country, as illegal aliens have traditionally done, many of the children and women who have crossed the border illegally have been seeking out Border Patrol agents and turning themselves in. “This is really the mark that indicates a coming crisis,” said Cabrera. “When the women and children start seeking out agents, we know there is word spreading in their home countries that they can come and be set free.”

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The problem is caused not so much by a failure to secure the border as a failure to process and deport those who have entered our country illegally. Knowing that they would not be immediately deported, many of the migrants — especially women and children — did not even try to sneak into the country but crossed the border in plain sight of Border Patrol agents.

While illegal immigrants from Mexico can fairly quickly be processed and sent back across the border, the situation for illegals from Central America is more complicated. The government must first clear their return with consular officials from their native country, and then charter planes to fly them home. If the immigrants request asylum in the United States, on the grounds that they fear persecution in their home countries, they must establish that their fears are credible.

NBC News also noted that many of the families crossing the border are eager to be caught so they can apply for asylum or temporary protected status as they try to escape the violence in the countries they have fled.