GOP governors return to Texas border site; many migrants move downriver to cross
Kyle Willis woke up Sunday in Mexico, weighing options for entry into the U.S. after being turned away last week at the most fortified stretch of Texas’ border.
The 23-year-old Jamaican, who said he left his country after facing attacks and discrimination due to his sexuality, had followed the path of a historic number of migrants over the last two years and tried crossing the Rio Grande at the Texas border city of Eagle Pass. But he waded back across the river after spending hours, in soaking clothes, failing to persuade Texas National Guard soldiers behind a razor wire fence to let him through.
“It’s not just something they’re saying to deter persons from coming in. It’s actually real,” said Willis, who is staying at a shelter in Piedras Negras.
His experience would be considered a victory for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who returned to Eagle Pass on Sunday afternoon with more than a dozen other GOP governors who have cheered his showdown with President Biden’s administration over immigration enforcement. But a decline in crossings is part of a complex mix of developments across the U.S. border, including heightened Mexican enforcement.
Meanwhile, migrants are moving further down the river and crossing elsewhere.
Soldiers and razor-sharp metal at the Mexico-Texas border don’t deter migrants who traveled months to get there, as numbers of those fleeing to the U.S. soar.
Abbott thanked the Republican governors for backing the efforts of the Lone Star State and reiterated his claims of an “invasion” along the southern border. He again cited a constitutional clause he said gives him legal backing to defend Texas.
The border crossings are a political liability for President Biden and an issue that Republicans are eager to put front and center to voters in an election year. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week committed to send more National Guard troops to Texas; other governors are also weighing new deployments.
Eagle Pass is where Texas has been locked in a power struggle with the Biden administration for the past month after the state began denying access to U.S. Border Patrol agents at the riverfront Shelby Park.
Crossings in recent weeks are down along the entire U.S. border, including areas without such a heavy security presence. Tucson, which has been the busiest of nine Border Patrol sectors on the Mexican border, tallied 13,800 arrests in the week to Friday. That is down 29% from a peak of 19,400 in the week ended Dec. 22, according to John Modlin, the sector chief.
The number of crossings in Eagle Pass has fallen to a few hundred a day. Mexico has bolstered immigration efforts that include adding checkpoints and sending personnel from the northern border to southern Mexico. The country has also deported some Venezuelan migrants.
Just a day after Biden expressed to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador “his appreciation for Mexico’s operational support and for taking concrete steps to deter irregular migration,” the Mexican immigration agency said Sunday that in the last week, it had rescued 71 immigrants — 22 of them minors — in two groups stranded on sand bars of the Rio Grande between Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras. The migrants were from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru and countries in Central America. Additionally, a Honduran woman and her 1-year-old were rescued from the water. The emergency team also found three corpses, apparently migrants who died trying to cross into the U.S.
Biden, sounding increasingly like former President Trump, is pressing Congress for asylum restrictions that would have been unthinkable when he took office.
This comes as voters are expressing concerns about immigration. An Associated Press-NORC poll this month found that those concerned climbed to 35% from 27% last year. In January, Iowa’s Republican caucuses showed a victory for Trump, and an AP VoteCast survey found that 9 in 10 caucusgoers supported building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, with 7 in 10 expressing strong support.
The arrival of GOP governors to Eagle Pass rounds out a weekend that has kept the city of roughly 30,000 in the national spotlight. Hundreds protesting Biden’s immigration policies held a “Take Back Our Border” rally Saturday on the outskirts of the city. Vendors sold MAGA hats and Trump flags.
Across the river from Eagle Pass, Melissa Ruiz, 30, arrived at the Piedras Negras shelter with her four children. The Honduran said gang members back home had tried to recruit her 15-year-old son, her oldest, prompting her to flee.
Ruiz said she had little awareness of the tightening security on the Texas side, having heard of many people crossing into the U.S. since she arrived at the shelter. The main deterrence for her, she said, is the cold weather and the increased river flow after recent rain. Drownings in the river are common.
“What they say, that one suffers so much on this road — it’s true,” Ruiz said.
Associated Press reporters Maria Verza in Mexico City and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.
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