As the U.S. continues to experience an influx through its southern border, Rio Grande City Border Patrol Station (RGC) agents have recently encountered multiple large groups of migrants.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that earlier this week, authorities encountered a group consisting of 123 people, which included some individuals whom agents identified as unaccompanied kids.
The July 20 CBP press release reported: “Last night, RGC agents working in Roma, Texas, encountered a large group of migrants as they walked away from the Rio Grande into the United States. Agents identified 94 of the migrants as family members, 11 as unaccompanied children, and 18 as single adults.”
The people in that group were from the nations of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, according to CBP.
Another incident involved a group of 106 people: “This morning, RGC agents working in La Grulla, Texas, observed a large group of migrants walking north from the Rio Grande,” the July 20 news release noted. “The group of 106 migrants was comprised of 56 family members, 10 unaccompanied children, and 40 single adults.”
The release reported that this marked “the eighth group of 100 or more migrants encountered by Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol (RGV) agents within the previous five days.”
A July 19 news release recently highlighted three other migrant group encounters that occurred on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, including one group that numbered 298.
Southwest land border encounters have been on the rise each month so far during fiscal year 2021, with the latest number from June reaching a whopping 188,829.
“The large number of expulsions during the pandemic has contributed to a larger-than-usual number of migrants making multiple border crossing attempts, which means that total encounters somewhat overstate the number of unique individuals arriving at the border,” CBP noted in a press release.
“Thirty-four percent of encounters in June 2021 were individuals who had at least one prior encounter in the previous 12 months, compared to an average one-year re-encounter rate of 14 percent for Fiscal Years 2014-2019. The number of unique new encounters in June 2021 was 123,838,” the agency noted.