Published January 20, 2024
Texas authorities began arresting illegal immigrants at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass on Wednesday after the state’s attorney general defied a cease-and-desist letter sent by the Biden administration demanding officials stop blocking U.S. Border Patrol agents from the site.
The arrests were announced by Lt. Chris Olivarez at the Texas Department of Public Safety on X, formerly Twitter.
Mr. Olivarez said single adult migrant men and women were taken into state custody and charged with criminal trespassing under Governor Greg Abbott’s new state law, which allows police to arrest and charge people suspected of entering the country illegally.
That measure was passed in December and is set to go into effect in March but is currently subject to a legal challenge by the Justice Department.
“Under the authority of Gov.@GregAbbott_TX’s Border Disaster Declaration, @TxDPS Troopers are arresting illegal immigrants for criminal trespass at #ShelbyPark in Eagle Pass,” he wrote.
“Troopers are enforcing criminal trespass on adult men & women. The State of Texas will maintain a proactive posture in curbing illegal border crossings between the ports of entry,” Mr. Olivarez added.
The Texas official also shared photos and video footage alongside the post, showing officers searching and handcuffing multiple illegal aliens before leading them into police vehicles.
Typically, illegal immigrants who enter the United States may surrender to border patrol agents and seek asylum.
Biden Admin Issues Warning
It is not immediately clear how many arrests were made by Texas officials.
However, the detentions mark the first of their kind since Texas state authorities earlier this month took control of Shelby Park, a roughly 2.5-mile portion of the U.S.-Mexico border that serves as a hotbed for illegal immigration, in an effort to combat unprecedented illegal border crossings.
Wednesday’s arrests are likely to increase ongoing tensions between Texas officials and the Biden administration after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) demanded state authorities stop “barring” federal Border Patrol agents from accessing the area, which is located next to the Rio Grande.
The federal government claims that Texas has “impeded operations of Border Patrol” along the area in “conflict with the authority and duties of Border Patrol under federal law” and preempted under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
In a cease-and-desist letter sent to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Jan. 14, DHS general counsel Jonathan Meyer further accused Texas of having failed to allow border agents access to the area “even in instances of imminent danger to life and safety.
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SOURCE: www.zerohedge.com
RELATED: Top border Dem reveals what negotiations need to be made to solve migrant crisis
Cuellar said he would urge President Biden to end catch and release.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, speaks during a news conference on rising suicide rates at the U.S. Border Patrol Dec. 7, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Published January 20, 2024
An influential House Democrat whose district is along the southern border says the ongoing migrant crisis needs increased repercussions for illegal entry, an end to “catch and release” and more pressure on Mexico by the Biden administration.
“I think the asylum law, the criteria for letting people in, can be adjusted, No. 1. No. 2, I think Title 8 should be enforced,” Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said in an interview with Fox News Digital, referring to regular border authorities.
“I think even if you don’t change the criteria for asylum, there’s enough under Title 8 that can get the job done, and that includes expedited removal. So, you got to have repercussions at the border, absolutely,” he said.
Cuellar, a moderate Democrat, has been a key bipartisan voice in finding solutions to the ongoing crisis that has engulfed the area since 2021, often finding himself opposing some of the moves the Biden administration has taken to handle the crisis.
Congress is debating a supplemental funding request from the White House that includes $14 billion for processing, aid to states and increased expedited removal. But Republicans have called for stricter limits on asylum, greater deportation and a limit on the release of migrants into the interior.
But Cuellar also said one thing was missing from discussions about the border in general, and that’s the need to put more pressure on Mexico to stop the flow north.
“We have to make sure that we put a constant pressure on Mexico, where Mexico slows down and holds people down there on the southern border. Then, naturally, there will be less people at our border,” he said, later adding that the pressure has to be “constant, constant, constant.”
He stressed that “catch and release” remained a pull factor for many migrants. Fox News recently reported that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said that more than 85% of migrants are being released into the U.S. There were over 300,000 migrant encounters at the border in December, a new record. Overall in fiscal year 2023 there were over 2.4 million migrant encounters.
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SOURCE: www.foxnews.com
RELATED: Mexican State Cops Capture Gulf Cartel Boss Behind Kidnapping, Murder of U.S. Citizens
Published January 19, 2024
Mexican state authorities arrested a top leader within the Gulf Cartel who is ultimately responsible for the 2023 kidnapping of four U.S. citizens, where two of them died, last year in the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas. That cartel boss has been directly responsible for the spread of violence in the northern part of Tamaulipas but managed to avoid capture for a long time due to his ties to the top government officials.
On Thursday afternoon, detectives with the Nuevo Leon State Investigations Agency (AEI) arrested Juan Alberto “La Kena or Ciclon 19” Garcia Vilano, the leader of the Escorpiones faction of the Gulf Cartel, along with two other men at a luxury store in the ritzy suburb of San Pedro in the Monterrey metropolitan area. The state investigators tracked down the fearsome cartel leader in coordination with the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office since Garcia Vilano is currently wanted in that state on kidnapping charges.
At the time of the arrests, Garcia Vilano was shopping inside the Palacio De Hierro, a luxury department store, when Nuevo Leon state detectives and their Tamaulipas counterparts arrested him and dragged him out of the shopping center in handcuffs. A local shopper recorded the moment when authorities moved la Kena out of the mall and into a convoy of police vehicles before they rushed him to their offices
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SOURCE: www.breitbart.com
