U.S. Border Patrol officers in Texas have detained hundreds of migrants in a single night as they illegally crossed from Mexico to the US across the Rio Grande river.
At least 200 migrants crossed the Rio Grande between 5am and dawn on Tuesday before they settled at a park in the town of La Joya, according to online portal Border Report.
Some had crossed the river on rafts, and Department of Homeland Security buses had to be brought in to ferry the migrants to processing centers.
Agents, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the scene was a daily occurrence, Border Reports said.
It came as U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced in a statement that agents detained 276 in the nearby towns of La Grulla and Roma on Tuesday
Border agents on Tuesday discovered several colored bracelets that were ripped off and thrown on the ground by the arriving migrants.
The colored bracelets are part of an elaborate system used by human smugglers and cartels and allows them to keep track of migrants who they traffick across the border.
Agent told the site that migrants often reuse the bracelets if they are turned away from the US, and used them to ‘keep trying to cross.’
‘It’s like a ticket to the carnival,’ one of the U.S. Border Patrol agents told Border Report.
SEE VIDEO BELOW
Asylum-seeking migrants’ families wait to be transported by the U.S. Border Patrols after crossing the Rio Grande River into the United States from Mexico in La Joya, Texas, on Tuesday
Unaccompanied minor migrants rest on the ground while waiting to be transported by the U.S. Border Patrol after they were found resting at a park in the small city of La Joya
A group of unaccompanied children await to be transported to a processing facility after they safely made it into the United States by crossing over from Mexico through the Rio Grande on Tuesday
Another told of the sheer numbers of people crossing the river in the early hours of the morning.
They said: ‘They’re everywhere. If you drive back there you might hit someone.’
Human smugglers reportedly have been charging individuals between $5,000 to $8,000 in order to illegally cross the United States-Mexico border, which stretches 1,9454 miles through the states Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California.
Border Patrol agents from the Rio Grande City Patrol station said they intercepted 276 migrants during two other separate incidents on Tuesday after they were seen trekking across the Rio Grande, according an official CBP statement.
Agents arriving at the shoreline near the town of Roma – some 33 miles away from La Joya – saw dozens of individuals crossing the river where strong rip currents have claimed many lives in the past.
The officers apprehended 145 migrants, including 24 unaccompanied children.
Moments later, Border Patrol agents assigned to the small city of La Grulla – 13 miles from La Joya – detained 131 migrants, including 28 unaccompanied children, after they were able to safely cross the Rio Grande into the United States.
A group of unaccompanied migrant children await for U.S. Border Patrol officers to taken to a processing facility Tuesday. As many as 19,000 unaccompanied migrant minors cross into the United States from Mexico during the month of March, according to preliminary U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures
All of the migrants were taken to local holding facilities where they were processed.
The asylum-seeking groups consisted of families, single adults and a number of unaccompanied minors.
All shared a common goal – finding suitable employment in to provide a better future for themselves and their children in the United States while sending what they could afford back home to support their families.
Cassie Escalante, a 30-year-old mother from Nicaragua, was among the 200 migrants who survived the often dangerous journey across the Rio Grande.
According to Border Report, she and her nine-year-old daughter spent a month moving through Mexico on taxis , buses and on foot before they finally made it to America, where they hope the Biden administration and immigration judges will grant them asylum.
‘We have been affected very much by the hurricanes and we want a normal life, Escalante said. ‘We really have nothing. In Nicaragua, the schooling for children does not offer a good education. It is a country where life is not sure.’
Honduran Jacqueline Jimenez found a spot with her three-year-old daughter on one of the rafts packed with other migrants before she made it to the Texas shore.
‘I am calm and grateful to God for our safe passage and crossing,’ she told Border Report.
Families seeking asylum from the Biden administration rest at a park in La Joya, Texas, on Tuesday
Unaccompanied minor migrants wait to be transported by the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing the Rio Grande, a river that serves as an international border line between Mexico and the United States
A child rests with an adult as they await to be transported by U.S. Border Patrol officers in La Joya, Texas, after they safely made it into the United States from Mexico
Tuesday’s group was just a small sample of migrants who have ignored warnings from the Biden administration about not showing up at the border entry points or other areas that aren’t heavily guarded by the Border Patrol
The crisis at the United States-Mexico border has worsened since Biden opened the southern border to asylum seekers who were living at a makeshift migrant camp in the Mexican border city of Matamoros on January 28, less than a week after he had been inaugurated as president.
Biden showed a willingness to grant entry to unaccompanied minors and families traveling with children who were seeking asylum from the United States.
Pictured are some of the 276 migrants who were found by Border Patrol agents in west Texas near the Mexico-United States border on Tuesday
An adult migrant hugs a child before they were taken to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility near La Joya, Texas
However, the Biden administration continued a practice set in place by the former President Trump which enforces the immediate removal of all others who come to the United States to file asylum petitions under the Title 42.
Under the policy, CBP is allowed to expel migrants through ports of entry instead of transporting them to Border Patrol stations.
The decision, the agency said, eliminates the risk of detained undocumented immigrants contracting COVID-19.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson confirmed to DailyMail.com on Wednesday that the agency is slated to release its stats for the month of March on Thursday.
Preliminary data shows that 171,000 migrants were caught by U.S. authorities at the border in March – the highest monthly total in two decades and the latest sign of the mounting humanitarian challenge confronting President Joe Biden.
The March arrest totals at the United States-Mexico border represent the highest monthly level since April 2000 when border patrol agents caught more than 180,000 migrants.
About 19,000 unaccompanied migrant children and 53,000 family members traveling together were detained, the preliminary figures showed.
The rising numbers of unaccompanied migrant minors are among the tasks that Vice President Kamala Harris has been ordered to find a solution for after President Biden tabbed her to lead the administration’s efforts into finding a solution for the border crisis.
In span a week Border Patrol agents have encountered at least five children abandoned by human smugglers near the Mexico-United States border.
On March 30, CBP surveillance cameras captured the moment two Ecuadorean sisters, aged 3 and 5, where dumped from a 14-foot high border wall in New Mexico.
Last Thursday, a 10-year-old boy from Nicaragua was found wandering alone on a road east of Rio Grande City. Video recorded by a Border Patrol officer showed the child crying and begging the agent for help because he was afraid he would be kidnapped.
On Tuesday, agents in Jacumba, California, saw two adults walking with two children, a six-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl, before they took off running and abandoned the children.
