In a scene one reporter referred to as “absolute chaos,” several hundred migrants rushed the border near El Paso, Texas, overwhelming the Texas National Guard at the crossing, and knocking down barriers put up by the state of Texas.
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According to the New York Post, the trouble started when border patrol agents began to segregate single males from family groups. The Biden administration has been turning away most single males who arrive at the border in recent months as pressure from Republicans and border control advocates forced the president to make changes.
The single males didn’t like being sent back across the border, and the result was a lot of pushing and shoving, forcing the migrants up front to push into the National Guardsmen.
Some in the crowd of migrants said they were under threat to keep going from the smugglers and coyotes. Though unconfirmed, you can glimpse several masked men in the crowd urging the migrants to keep pushing.
A group of men with hoodies, gloves and winter jackets could be seen pulling fencing away and dashing through the concertina wire, as a group of five guards stood in a defensive formation to fill the gap.
The guardsmen firmly held their rifles and stood their ground in front of the migrants, who heavily outnumbered them.
A few put their hands directly on the migrants to keep them back in response to being pushed, as the scene became louder and more chaotic.
In the video, some figures raise their hands in surrender, but seconds later, others scramble through, with some coming through the guards’ legs and knocking them out of the way.
The group then scrambled to the border gate and started to shout at guardsmen on the other side.
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“When they come — and they’re now being extorted, they’re being beaten up on the Mexican side — they have that kind of urgency to make an entry. And that’s what’s happening right now,” Valeria Morales, a special operations supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol, said.
That urgency is leading to increasing tensions on both sides of the border. Mexico is warning of “substantial tension” if the new Texas law allowing state troopers to apprehend illegal aliens goes into effect.
Open borders groups are trying to play on those fears with the courts in seeking to stop SB4, the bill authorizing action by Texas state troopers.
“Enforcement of SB 4 would inappropriately burden the uniform and predictable sovereign-to-sovereign relations between Mexico and the United States, by criminalizing the unauthorized entry of noncitizens into Texas from outside the county and creating diverging removal requirements between and among individual states and the national government,” lawyers for Mexico wrote in the amicus brief.
“Enforcement of SB 4 would also interfere with Mexico’s right to determine its own policies regarding entry into its territory, undermine U.S.-Mexico collaboration on a legal migration framework and border management, and hinder U.S.-Mexico trade,” the attorneys told the court.
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That’s some kind of a joke. Mexico flagrantly encourages its people and everyone else to enter the U.S. illegally and they’re complaining about the U.S. interfering with Mexico’s border policies?
Sheesh.
CNN:
The 5th Circuit is currently considering whether to allow Texas to enforce Senate Bill 4 while it weighs the larger question of whether the law violates the US Constitution. A three-judge panel at the appeals court put the law back on hold late Tuesday after the Supreme Court cleared the way for it to go into effect for a short period earlier that day.
The “spring surge” of illegal immigrants is already building. If Biden doesn’t take stronger action than he has already, there are going to be more scenes like the one at the El Paso border crossing.