Houston Chronicle by Silvia Foster-Frau June 5, 2019
As the Border Patrol struggles to handle the continued surge of migrants, it has built its third complex of tents at an overwhelmed Texas border crossing.
The three Quonset-hut style tents were placed at the Border Patrol station in Eagle Pass. They come on the heels of two other “tent cities†that were built in recent months to relieve pressure in El Paso and in the town of Donna in the Rio Grande Valley.
New arrest figures released Wednesday underscore the need for migrant shelters. More than 144,000 migrants were apprehended in May, the highest monthly total in seven years and nearly three times the number of arrests in May 2018.
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“CBP will exhaust our resources before the end of this fiscal year,†said John Sanders, acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.
“We are in a full-blown emergency, and I cannot say this stronger: the system is broken,†he said.
More than 1,000 CBP employees have been reassigned to aid with border operations, Sanders said, a shuffling of resources that has increased wait times at ports of entry.
In the Del Rio Sector, Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz said Wednesday the Eagle Pass tents will be used until a permanent solution is found.
Overall, CBP has detained nearly 680,000 migrants since October — “more than the population of Miami,†Sanders said. Most arrests occurred in the Rio Grande sector, with more than 49,000, followed by El Paso, with more than 38,000.
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