Illegal migrant smuggling co-ordinated by cartels has exploded in the southwestern states after Texas implemented stricter measures to secure its border with Mexico, several officials told The Post.
The strategy change comes after Texas increased the number of National Guard troops and Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers deployed to secure the border and placing more razor wire, barricades and deterrents to stop illegal crossings, as part of its Operation Lone Star.
In one of the most dramatic examples, after Texas troops moved in to secure Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, placed shipping containers at the banks of the Rio Grande and started arresting migrants who crossed on to state property for trespassing the DPS said crossings dropped from 2,000 to 3,000 a day to around five.
While Texas’ efforts have been successful, migrants are still flooding to the border leading people smuggling operations run by criminal cartels in Mexico to areas further west.
Manny Bayon, National Border Patrol Council President for San Diego, told The Post smugglers now concentrate on Arizona and California.
The San Diego sector of the US-Mexico border has exploded in the number of people arrested with roughly 2,300 migrants in custody as of Wednesday morning, according to internal Border Patrol data obtained by The Post. The sector has the capacity to hold just 750.
San Diego became the number one area for illegal crossings for the first time in 20 years in April with 37,370 encounters, according to NewsNation.
In one week of April there were 10,000 migrants encountered from 69 countries in the San Diego sector, according to San Diego Chief Patrol Agent Patricia McGurk-Daniel
And since September, roughly 140,000 migrants have been released by Border Patrol onto the local streets after crossing illegally, according to San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond.
“Since Texas Governor Abbott has implemented Operation Lone Star securing the Texas/Mexico border, the National Border Patrol Council has seen a significant increase in migrant traffic entering Arizona [and] California. Primarily California since its a sanctuary state,” Bayon said.
Meanwhile, Texas border counties once overwhelmed by migrant crossings in recent years, have seen a major slowdown in illegal entries.
Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber, whose region includes Eagle Pass, says efforts by both Texas and the Mexican government have helped slow migrant traffic.
Mexican law enforcement has also taken measures to stop migrants from transiting the country without permits to do so, according to Border Report.
This is a tactic it has previously employed, resulting in migrants having to stay in the south of the country at the border with Guatemala.
Joe Frank Martinez, the sheriff of Val Verde county, home to the once-overrun Del Rio, Texas, border checkpont — where roughly 14,000 Haitian migrants descended in September 2021 in a matter of days — echoed Schmerber’s points.
“What Operation Lone Star has done has made a good impact,” Martinez said, adding that “measures that the US and Mexico have taken have made a difference also.”
“There’s not that many people coming across here in Del Rio, or actually in the Del Rio sector,” Martinez said.
The Del Rio area is now seeing an average of 342 migrant arrivals each day, according to Border Report.
Most importantly, Martinez added: “It has allowed our Border Patrol agents to do their job back in the field,” meaning more time securing the border instead of guarding and processing migrants caught illegally crossing.
Mexican national guard forces have also been deployed at the country’s northern border with the US and in some areas of San Diego, troops have been pushing migrants back from the border.
However, there are still large groups from all over the world crossing, a Border Patrol agent in the area told The Post.
That has continued to “overwhelm” and “frustrate” agents making apprehensions of illegal border crossers, Bayon said.
