Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents seize a stash house in Rio Bravo, Texas, on Jan. 20, 2021. (Courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
Matthew Hudak, chief patrol agent for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Laredo, Texas, said the number of migrants at the southern border is increasing at an “alarming rate” with the emergence of caravans of illegal immigrants in Honduras.
He warned that illegal immigration is only part of the threat, which could also cause Epidemic health risks and other criminal actions along the border.
Hudak said, “Like everyone else, we’re tracking these caravans of illegal immigrants that are forming in Central America.” The Laredo District is one of nine districts along CBP’s southern border, which governs the 135-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border.
Matthew Hudak, chief patrol agent for the Laredo Sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in a video interview with the Epoch Times on Jan. 21, 2021.
On Jan. 8, Mark Morgan, then acting CBP director, issued a warning to illegal immigrants, “Don’t waste your Time and money, and don’t risk your safety and health.” However, according to Hudak, illegal immigration has not decreased as a result of the statement. From Oct. 1 of last year to the present, the unit has arrested more than 30,000 illegal immigrants this fiscal year, a 50 percent increase over the same period last year.
Hudak added that other departments along the southern border have seen similar trends, calling the 50 percent increase “a pretty alarming rate.
He told the Epoch Times that some of the 9,000-migrant caravan is headed to the southern border, and that part of the group was stopped in Guatemala (Guatemala) on Jan. 16. Depending on the speed and manner in which the migrants are traveling, they could reach the U.S.-Mexico border between a few days and a few weeks. As of Jan. 21, he had not seen a sharp increase in migrants at the southern border, due to the arrival of the caravan.
Hudak said human smuggling often shares a system with drug and gun smuggling, and that the fees charged to illegal immigrants support larger criminal organizations. As a result, he sees it as a more significant threat: “We may be talking about one part of it, which is illegal immigration, but it’s one piece of a larger criminal organization.”
A large number of illegal Honduran migrants heading to the United States try to break through Guatemalan border agents on Jan. 17, 2021.
He attributed the surge in immigration to the U.S. economy and a well-established health care system, especially since the timing played a role during the Communist virus (Wuhan pneumonia) pandemic, which coincided with the U.S. economy preparing to revive.
We’ve seen this country’s economy get back on track and continue to expand,” he said. That’s always been the driving force behind people trying to come here to find jobs. We’ve done interviews and really got the message that there’s a sense of timing and that it’s time to try to move to the United States.”
Teresa De la Garza is an immigration representative with Catholic Social Services, an agency certified by the Department of Justice. It took her 11 years to become an American. Growing up on the border, she attended an international school in Texas and returned Home to Mexico every day. She says part of the immigration boom was fueled by the new president taking office, not a shift in immigration policy.
Teresa De la Garza (center), an immigration representative at Catholic Social Services in Laredo, Texas, and her colleagues. (Courtesy of Teresa De la Garza)
Such enthusiasm, she argues, is unrealistic. De la Garza said, “Some of the policies that have changed in these four years are not going to be reversed as soon as another president takes office. It’s going to take time.” In her view, it will take four years for the new administration to make significant changes to immigration policy.
De La Garza is currently busy offering counseling appointments through March for applicants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The program assists illegal immigrants who were brought into the United States before they turned 16 years old. A Jan. 20 presidential memo has reinstated the program after the Department of Homeland Security put it on hold for review last year.
De La Garza said the local community does not want illegal immigrants to arrive because of health problems brought on by the viral pandemic. Just in mid-January, CBP found 114 immigrants in a box truck. Most of them were not wearing personal protective equipment.
On Jan. 14, 2021, U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Laredo Sector stopped a human smuggling case involving a U-Haul rental box truck and arrested 114 illegal immigrants. (Courtesy of CBP)
According to Hudak, the primary challenge for the near future is to protect the nation’s security and workforce during the pandemic and keep up with the evolution of drug cartel and smuggling organization tactics, including the use of a wider variety of mobile vehicles than large trailer trucks.
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