EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Cool temperatures and an early morning fog didn’t stop a steady trickle of people from coming across the Rio Grande to the border wall in El Paso on Thursday.
About 100 people waited on U.S. soil to be picked up by the U.S. Border Patrol and taken to processing centers in Northeast El Paso already holding nearly 5,000 migrants. More could be seen walking on the Mexican side of the river littered with discarded clothing and empty food and beverage containers.
It’s a critical situation that is flying under the radar as the nation’s eyes turn to Lukeville, Arizona, and Eagle Pass, Texas, two communities where migrants are coming across the border by the thousands each day, a Texas congressman says.
“El Paso has been hit just as much as these other places,” U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, said after touring migrant holding facilities in El Paso. “I know in the news Arizona is getting a lot of attention, Eagle Pass is getting a lot of attention […] but in the past couple of days, there have been 1,200 and 1,500 people that have come over illegally (here). In detention, there’s over 4,500 people at that facility where I was earlier today that has a capacity of 2,500. We’re already double that.”
Gonzales represents a congressional district stretching from El Paso to San Antonio that includes 800 miles of U.S.-Mexico border. He is one of several Republicans calling on the White House and Democratic colleagues to surge immigration judges to the border and be stricter during credible fear interviews now resulting in the release of thousands of migrants coming between ports of entry and claiming asylum.
Gonzales this week sent a letter to House and Senate leaders to take emergency action to protect the border. He says some highway checkpoints leading from the border to the interior of the U.S. are closed or understaffed, which means motorists aren’t being checked for drugs or immigration status. “In other words, our border is wide open and the cartels have free passage,” Gonzales wrote to congressional leaders.
The two-term congressman also blamed longer border crossing wait times for lawful travelers on the reassignment of federal officials from ports of entry and railway inspection facilities to assist in migrant processing.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection website on Thursday showed passenger vehicle inspection wait times of 100 and 140 minutes at the Paso del Norte and Bridge of the Americas ports of entry, respectively.
Alejandro Rincon, a Juarez resident who commutes to work in El Paso every day, on Thursday told Border Report his commute has gone from the usual one-hour to two to three hours.
“You got resources that have been taken from El Paso to go to other sectors: Del Rio Sector, to help out at Eagle Pass, to go to Tucson (Arizona) Sector. Also, some of the buses are coming from Eagle Pass here. So, while we’re dealing with our own issues, we also have more (to deal with) there,” Gonzales said while in El Paso.
The Republicans are demanding border security concessions from President Biden and the Democrats in exchange for freeing up money for allies Ukraine and Israel to deal with wars.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, who represents most of El Paso proper in Congress, has denounced the Republican maneuver as political. She is calling on bipartisan immigration reform to solve not just the current record surge, but also future flows.
Escobar is co-sponsor of The Dignity Act, which would legalize millions of undocumented migrants but also enact a mandatory employment verification system.
But Gonzales said the crisis must be addressed now and doesn’t believe comprehensive immigration reform can be approved now. “Comprehensive immigration reform is code word for not wanting to get anything done” right now, he said.