Migrants held for ransom in Texas hoped Biden would welcome them

More On:

immigration

Disorder at border: Biden migrant ‘crisis’ getting worse, top officials say

The border mess is only going to get worse

Scalise urging Republicans
to vote against Dream Act

DHS boss downplays terror suspects sneaking across US-Mexico border

HIDALGO COUNTY, Texas. — On a dusty patch of gravel a few miles from the Mexican border, the journey north for twelve Latin American migrants came to a screeching halt.

Three women and nine men, mostly from Honduras and Guatemala, were rescued from a stash house in Edinburg, Texas on Wednesday morning by the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office after they’d been smuggled into the country and taken by coyotes who were holding them for ransom. 

“I arrived here bleeding without clothes, very hurt, but this is something that we do for our children and for our family,” migrant Elizabeth Carrillo, 20, told The Post as she sobbed. 

“We almost died in the [Rio Grande] when we crossed.” 

The rescue was witnessed by The Post during a ride-along with the sheriff’s office as they worked alongside US Border Patrol for Operation Stonegarden, a federal grant program that gives funding to local law enforcement units to assist with border security measures. 

They’d been sent to the scene around 5 a.m. after Carrillo told relatives in New Jersey her and the other migrants were being held by two men with guns who were refusing to let them leave until they were paid off. 

“They told me if I said anything that they would do something to me and my daughter,” the Ecuadorian native explained, saying she’d been kidnapped by the men after she crossed the river alone. 

By the time cops arrived, the smugglers were long gone. The migrants said they lived in a home across the street but when cops knocked on the door, no one answered.

Carrillo is one of the tens of thousands of migrants who’s rushed towards the border in recent weeks as President Biden relaxed strict immigration policies set in place by his predecessor and appeared to send a more welcoming message to desperate foreigners in search of a better life. 

“They said that Biden was going to help the people,” Carrillo explained as she sat on the ground outside of the stash house beside a handful of broken children’s toys and the other migrants, waiting for Border Patrol to pick them up for processing.

“My purpose was to come here with my family, work for five years and to go back and be with my daughter. I only wanted to work to give my daughter a future. I never thought that it was like this,” the migrant said of her one-year-old, who’s in the care of her mother. 

Juana Débora Jiménez, 33, spent three months traveling from Mazatenango, Guatemala so she could join relatives in Miami, find work and send money back for her two children, who weren’t able to attend school during the pandemic. She believed Biden would be more sympathetic to her plight. 

“I came because he has more heart,” Jiménez cried. 

“He is the president that could help us. He cares more about us than the other one, and I thought he would see our necessity and help us. Our own president doesn’t care about us,” the mom went on. 

“I ask the President to help us… I think that maybe he will see the need that we have for work. If we wouldn’t have the need for work then we wouldn’t come in like this.” 

As part of the operation, the sheriff’s office spends the bulk of their time conducting traffic stops for vehicles suspected of human smuggling, rescuing migrants left behind by coyotes in the brush, or collecting their dead bodies, and conducting raids and rescues at stash houses.

“Usually in the past, before the change in administration, we would work stash houses but not to the frequency we are now,” Sergeant Robert Quait, who took The Post for the ride along, explained. 

Before Biden took over, there’d be one to two human smuggling busts at stash houses each week but recently, there “could be multiple in a day,” Quait said. 

“The coyotes were telling them Biden opened up the borders so the caravans started coming. It’s picked up,” a deputy explained at the scene.

During a previous rescue, a deputy said the migrants asked them “how do we get processed?”

“I said ‘what do you mean get processed’ and they said ‘we were told as soon as we get here, they’ll let us stay,’” he explained.

A US Customs and Border Protection spokesperson wasn’t able to say where the 12 migrants, and eight others apprehended later in the day, ended up and if they’d be allowed to stay in the country.

“Unfortunately, we do not track,” spokesman Thomas Gresback told The Post in an email.

“Without knowing the specific cases, the migrants apprehended at the stash house will be processed –  most likely under Title 8 –  which covers a broad spectrum of immigration laws. The individuals will be turned over to other agencies such as ICE for additional processing.  Every case is different based on the specifics of the individual.”

When asked which public agency would know where the migrants went, Gresback said “no one would really know” as they weren’t processed as a group.

“The stations process the individuals and then transfer custody to the appropriate agencies based on the case history… each one of them could possibly have been treated differently based on their history,” the spokesman said.

“The Border Patrol works closely with all federal agencies in processing migrants based on each case.”

While there have been recent migrant surges to the southern border under former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump in 2014 and 2019, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted Tuesday the latest rush is set to be the largest in decades.  

“We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years,” Mayorkas said in a statement. 

In January, over 78,000 migrants were encountered at the border and in February, that number shot up 28 percent to 100,441, the largest number seen since March 2019, US Customs and Border Protection data shows. 

In Fiscal Year 2021, spanning October to February, the overwhelming majority of encounters were single adults, accounting for 82.3 percent of the total. About 10 percent were family units and seven percent were unaccompanied kids, the data shows.

“Over the last few weeks it seems like a switch has been flipped,” a CBP official said.

“It’s bad and if it continues at this pace, it’s going to get worse.” 

Share this article:

Source: Read Full Article