Border Patrol agents must be exhausted, and perhaps ready to surrender and head for home.
Three more times this week they apprehended large groups of illegal aliens who walked across the border, sure in the knowledge that Customs and Border Protection will release them.
The crisis, border officials have rightly said, is “unsustainable,” and what border agents encountered in the last three days shows how unsustainable it is.
424 in New Mexico, 230 in Arizona
On Tuesday, CBP apprehended several large groups of illegals at different places along the border. The total: 654.
In New Mexico just after midnight, agents collared more than 424 illegals in Sunland Park.
But 200 miles away, the agency reported, “U.S. Border Patrol agents working at Camp Bounds Forward Operating Base at the Antelope Wells Port of Entry, arrested a large group of 230 illegal aliens around 2 a.m. This group was also comprised primarily of Central American families and unaccompanied juveniles.”
CBP noted that the “migrants” have “faced a dangerous journey in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers” who “never cross the border themselves.”
But the problem, of course, is not confined to New Mexico.
About 400 miles west near Quitobaquito Springs, Arizona, the agency’s cameras spotted another large group crossing the border. The group contained 231 illegals. Agents apprehended them at the same place where they caught a group of 399 last week.
CBP reported that the “vast majority” of “family units” who cross are “surrendering immediately.”
Meanwhile, cameras in the Yuma Sector caught 111 illegals crossing the border.
The grainy recording CBP tweeted yesterday shows “migrants” marching into the country and boarding what appears to be a bus. The throng moves quickly and efficiently with a determined pace.
Warming Bottles, Changing Diapers
The tidal wave that has hit the border in the last few months is not a spontaneous migration.
Open-borders activists have pushed the “migrants,” almost all of them from the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, to join “caravans.” And as The New American noted in its report about 360 illegals apprehended in mid April, smugglers are advertising in Central American newspapers for “migrant” customers, whom they ship north on buses. Smugglers assist them across the border using drones that spot border agents.
Such is the influx that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has sent multiple teams of agents to help the Border Patrol. ICE has found that 25 percent of those “family units” really aren’t. The “families” carry fake identification and adults lie about the children with them.
As well, the Pentagon has deployed another 320 troops to the border to assist the Border Patrol with the migrant hordes.
But the problem facing the Border Patrol and ICE isn’t just the shocking number of “migrants” who cross and surrender to U.S. authorities.
Many of them are sick, as The New American reported this morning.
Aaron Hull, the border chief at the El Paso Sector, told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo that the illegals entering the country carry highly contagious and potentially fatal diseases such as scabies and tuberculosis.
Border agents are dealing with pregnant women, warming bottles, and changing diapers.
The numbers from the El Paso sector show just how many sick migrants might be entering the country. In mid April, CBP reported that El Paso had apprehended 71,000 illegals since October, the beginning of fiscal 2019. Last year, the figure was 11,000. Agents in the El Paso sector apprehended 1,800 illegals on April 16.
Just how many carry lice, scabies, or tuberculosis, and where are they now?
More Catch and Release
The ill health of the illegals isn’t just a threat to the health of the border agents. Contrary to the President’s Trump promise, the Trump administration has not stopped catch and release, and has been dumping the illegals into cities across the southwest where they pose a risk of spreading the parasites and diseases they carry to unsuspecting Americans.
The government has released more than 100,000 illegals into communities that did not, of course, enjoy the luxury of contesting the policy. Some 50,000 landed in San Antonio between January 1 and the end of March.
Last week, the mayor of Yuma declared an emergency because ICE had dumped so many illegals there.
More than 100,000 illegals crossed the border in March, and more than 400,000 have crossed since October.
Photo: AP Images
