(NewsNation) — The number of migrants who entered the United States illegally is rising in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where more than 5,000 encounters with federal border agents have taken place in August alone, NewsNation has learned.
The region along the U.S.-Mexico border is experiencing the highest number of illegal crossings of anywhere in the country, according to data obtained by NewsNation from Department of Homeland Security sources.
With five days remaining in the month, encounters have already increased by more than 400 from July, when 4,598 illegal crossings took place in the Rio Grande sector.
The migrant foot traffic comes at a time when a coordinated effort between federal and state law enforcement agencies made 78 arrests over the past weekend. The Trump administration has reported that over the past three months, no undocumented migrants encountered at the border have been released back into the country.
Those encountered are still being processed at the border, but rather than being released pending a court date as was happening under the Biden administration, they are being detained and scheduled for deportation back into their home country.
NewsNation cameras are there as border crossers captured
NewsNation was the only news organization embedded with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s elite brush team and ATV unit Thursday, and, along with the U.S. Border Patrol, witnessed undocumented migrants scaling the border wall to enter the United States.
Among them was a Mexican national who scaled the wall, along with another man believed to be a guide for cartel smugglers. The suspected guide crossed back into Mexico while the other man attempted to evade capture by hiding in the brush.
He was captured along with two women, one from Colombia and another from Guatemala, who were wearing cartel bracelets. The bracelets indicate the women paid the cartel to help them enter the U.S. illegally.
They were captured along with a 20-year-old Mexican national, who was also wearing a cartel bracelet. The women told NewsNation they each paid $5,000 to criminal cartels, which is about $2,000 higher than the normal going rate for Guatemalan women seeking to cross the border.
Texas continues devoting increased resources
Lt. Chris Olivarez with Texas DPS said that the agency is devoting many resources to the immigration enforcement effort to assist federal immigration enforcement agencies as part of Operation Lonestar.
He said that’s done because just one “gotaway” represents a potential national security threat to American citizens.
“We know that one gotaway could be a terrorist, a gang member,” Olivarez told NewsNation. “We don’t know exactly who these people are when they cross the border. That’s why it’s so important to have all these resources dedicated (to the operation).”
