Department of Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson issued a statement Thursday evening, saying in October, 46,195 people were apprehended on the border, compared to 39,501 in September and 37,048 in August, reports WTVR.com Richmond.
“As a result, there are currently about 41,000 individuals in our immigration detention facilities — typically, the number in immigration detention fluctuates between 31,000 and 34,000,” he said.
Agents in the South Texas Rio Grande Valley Sector have seen a huge surge in the number of Family Unit Aliens (FMUA) and Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) in recent months, reports Breitbart.com. These numbers, while showing a short-term trend, stand in opposition to the overall decline in illegal immigration along the southern border of the U.S. reported by the Washington Post.
One thing is clear: the strategies employed by migrants to make it into America is very dangerous. Breitbart Texas got hold of a statement that Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Marlene Castro wrote on Saturday. In it, she writes: “Illicit networks facilitate the majority of cross-border activity and smugglers prey on migrants by extorting money, confining them in deplorable conditions, and often physically and sexually assaulting them.”
She added that despite the risks, migrants still continue to put themselves and their children into the hands of unscrupulous human traffickers.
President-Elect Donald Trump ran on the promise he would put a stop to illegal immigrants sneaking into the country by building a wall to keep them out, as well as the promise to deport almost 3.0 million immigrants already in the U.S.
Vicente Garza lives in Granjeno, Texas, just a few feet from the border fence. He told News Channel 6 Now that he has seen many people cross the border.
“This is my property line here, and they’ll run right alongside until they get up to the highway,” he said. “On a daily basis, it could be 10, 15, sometimes even 20 people at a time.” Garza is hopeful the additional agents will increase security. “We do need people to take care of our borders,” he said.
