thousands of migrants congregated beneath a bridge in the border town of Del Rio on Thursday, as part of an unprecedented wave of immigration crossing into the United States this week that has overloaded the border officials and created major delays in processing the arrivals.
Agents from the United States Border Patrol stated that more than 9,000 migrants, most of whom were from Haiti, were being detained in a temporary staging area under the Del Rio International Bridge as they worked as swiftly as they could to process them.
The number of individuals in the temporary camp has increased at an alarming rate in recent days, having risen from a few hundred people earlier in the week. It is anticipated that thousands more people would cross the ankle-deep Rio Grande between Mexico and Del Rio in the next days, according to the police and municipal leaders.
Adding additional Border Patrol officers to the area is being done to “immediately handle the current number of migrant contacts and to enable a safe and compassionate process,” according to the agency. According to the Border Patrol, the covered space beneath the bridge was established to “avoid injuries from heat-related sickness” while migrants awaited to be brought into custody at the border.
Several local authorities expressed their displeasure with the sight, which included thick populations sleeping on dirt or milling around in triple-digit temperatures while living in worsening sanitary conditions, among other things. Texan Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the state police and the National Guard to help border officers in Del Rio, claiming that the federal response has not been sufficient to stem the flow of illegal immigrants coming into the country.
President Biden’s decision to terminate America’s longest war was used as an example of how the Biden administration was addressing the border issue.
The Southwest border has been flooded in recent months by an unprecedented influx of illegal crossings, the likes of which have not been seen in more than two decades. More than 200,000 individuals crossed the border in the past month, increasing the total number of persons who have crossed this fiscal year to more than 1.5 million.
A new humanitarian issue has emerged in recent days as the population of Del Rio, a hamlet approximately 150 miles west of San Antonio surrounded by ranch property, thousands of acres of prickly scrub, and towering mesquite trees, has grown at an alarming rate.
