{"id":21157,"date":"2019-03-04T15:25:59","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T20:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=21157"},"modified":"2019-03-04T15:43:23","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T20:43:23","slug":"border-arrests-on-record-setting-pace-in-rio-grande-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2019\/03\/04\/border-arrests-on-record-setting-pace-in-rio-grande-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Border Arrests on Record-Setting Pace in Rio Grande Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Apprehensions of illegal border crossers are on pace to top 240,000 in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) this year. On just one day, Feb. 27, Border Patrol agents arrested more than 1,300 people<\/a> — a five-year record.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A majority of the arrests are family\nunits and unaccompanied children<\/a> from Central and South America,\nwhich greatly impact the number of agents available to carry out the border\nsecurity mission within the RGV Sector,” the Border Patrol reported,\nnoting that the apprehensions represented roughly half of all detentions along\nthe entire U.S. Mexico border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rio\nGrande Valley surge<\/a> comes as no surprise. From 2000-2014, arrests in the busy sector jumped 92\npercent, hitting an annual average of 158,000. At\nthe current rate, they will be up another 52 percent this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And these are just the arrest figures. No one knows how many\nmore illegal aliens successfully evade capture in the sprawling\nregion<\/a> that spans 320 river miles, 250 coastal miles\nand 19 counties stretching over 17,000 square miles.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coyotes transporting\nCentral American migrants know that the RGV is thousands of miles closer than California.\nThe valley is fertile ground for human trafficking and drug smuggling because\nmuch of it lays adjacent to federally protected lands and wildlife refuges,\ncreating access problems for agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President\nDonald Trump, who visited the Rio Grande Valley earlier this year, has made the\narea a top priority for border wall construction, and Congress\nlast month agreed to fund 55 miles of barriers there<\/a>. The new wall will be built\non the western side of the sector, where officials say approximately 90 percent\nof arrests occur. There are55 miles\nof existing barrier on the eastern side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nleaves hundreds of miles of the Rio Grande Valley unsecured, but that’s of no\nconcern to the open-borders crowd and their political front-men. For Rep.\nWill Hurd<\/a>,\nwhose district includes a large swath of the RGV, it’s all rainbows and\nbutterflies. The Texas Republican voted to block Trump’s emergency order for\nmore wall funding, and branded the border crisis a “myth.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A local lawman is similarly cavalier. Hidalgo\nCounty Sheriff J.E. \u201cEddie\u201d Guerra<\/a>, in charge of policing the largest and most populous county in\nthe valley, says local crime rates are at record lows, and that illegal\nimmigration has little effect on public safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently Sheriff Guerra doesn’t get out much. Four\nof Texas’s most dangerous cities are in Hidalgo County<\/a>, and one, Donna, has the third highest violent\ncrime rate in the Lone Star State. Can it be mere coincidence that these communities are in\nthe well-trod path of human smugglers and drug traffickers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“These local economies are built on dope\nand money laundering,” another South Texas sheriff told FAIR last month. A\nprofessor in Brownsville calls drug money \u201cthe\nWD-40 of the valley.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like\nthe illegal alien arrest figures, illegal activity is surely understated\nbecause the porous border makes residents reluctant to report crimes. Fearing\nretaliation by violent cartels trafficking narcotics, illegal aliens and\nweapons, locals figure their survival depends on keeping their heads down and\ntheir mouths shut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meantime,\nthe border surge continues apace in their midst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apprehensions of illegal border crossers are on pace to top 240,000 in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) this year. On just one day, Feb. 27, Border Patrol agents arrested more than 1,300 people — a five-year record. “A majority of the arrests are family units and unaccompanied children from Central and South America, which greatly impact<\/p>\n

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