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1,000 migrants rush El Paso port of entry

by mcardinal

Matt Bush, FISM News

A huge group of at least 1,000 migrants, mostly Venezuelan, stormed the U.S.-Mexico border as they tried to gain entry to the U.S. at around noon Sunday. 

The incident occurred at the Paso Del Norte bridge that links Mexico and the U.S. in El Paso, Texas. 

Crowd control measures were used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and the attempt to enter the U.S. was thwarted.

“CBP officials including members of the CBP Mobile Field Force implemented port hardening measures at the Paso Del Norte international bridge at 1:30 p.m. today temporarily preventing the northbound flow of traffic on the Mexican side of the border and approached the international boundary posing a potential threat to make a mass entry,” a statement from the CBP reads. “The CBP response included the deployment of physical barriers to restrict entry. As of 5 pm there is no traffic processing occurring at PDN.”

Some news outlets are reporting that the migrants were reacting to a rumor that they would be allowed to cross into the U.S. because of a non-existent “day of the migrant” celebration.

The fact that the migrants were mostly Venezuelan, one of the four countries along with Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cuba that are a part of the parole program instituted by the Biden administration, has led many to believe that the limitations of that program played a role in this incident.

The parole program was instituted to prevent people from traveling from those countries to the U.S.-Mexico border. The program would allow up to 30,000 migrants per month to enter the U.S. from the four countries as long as they followed rules including finding a financial sponsor, applying online for parole, and entering through an airport rather than the border.

In January, there were only about 130,000 illegal migrants detained at the border compared with 250,000 in December. The fact that more than a thousand migrants rushed the border on Sunday, however, shows that the parole program’s success could be short-lived as frustrations are running high for people who want to enter the U.S. now.

El Paso is at the frontlines of the border crisis, routinely seeing an average of more than 2,000 migrant encounters a day.

In December, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser declared a state of emergency as the city was unable to deal with the record influx of immigrants into the city. President Biden visited El Paso in January to see the issue firsthand after he had failed to visit the border for nearly the first two years of his presidency, even though multiple polls showed it was one of the most pressing issues for Americans.

FENTANYL DANGERS

On top of the frustration felt by migrants trying to enter the U.S. after fleeing from dangerous or war-torn countries, Mexican drug cartels are seizing the opportunity to flood American cities with illegal and deadly drugs, chief amongst them is fentanyl.

As CBP agents are busy with events like the one in El Paso Sunday, or even in their normal daily encounter with thousands of migrants trying to enter the country, drug cartels are pushing fentanyl and other dangerous drugs across the border daily. 

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “fentanyl and related substances have contributed to a dramatic rise in drug overdose deaths in the United States.” Drug overdose deaths in America have increased from 70,630 in 2019, to 91,799 in 2020, to 106,699 in 2021. While 2022 numbers have not been calculated, the results are expected to be even higher.

Last week law enforcement officials found close to one million fentanyl pills inside the trunk of a single Volkswagen Jetta outside of Los Angeles. Three Mexican nationals were arrested for possession of the drugs. After studying the chemical makeup of the pills, it was discovered that 600,000 of them had potentially lethal doses of the drug.

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