The Democrat mayor of Eagle Pass, Texas, said that his constituents have faced robberies and home invasions as illegal immigrants continue to flood over the southern border.
Mayor Rolando Salinas told the New York Post on Thursday that he expected his city of 28,500 to absorb between 4,000-9,000 illegal immigrants in the next several days, a number which would be on top of the thousands who have already crossed into and through the city. According to the Post, roughly 11,500 illegal immigrants have already crossed into Eagle Pass over the last 10 days.
He said that he had “never seen people cross like this” before and that there needed to be consequences for illegally coming into the U.S.
“If they’re going to come, they must enter through the port of entry. I know people are desperate, but this is a nation of laws,” he said. “Our cops are overwhelmed. Our firefighters are responding to calls for care for migrants. We don’t have the resources to handle this.”
In recent days, videos from the border show streams of foreign nationals crossing into the U.S., with many coming in through Eagle Pass, where the Biden administration has been accused of cutting down razor wire put up by Texas to deter crossings.
Valeria Wheeler, executive director of the Mission Border Hope Center in Eagle Pass, said that the influx of illegal immigrants had brought a lot of single men and an increase in violence.
“Mostly, we are seeing single men. From Sunday to Wednesday, we had six incidents of violence in the shelter – shoving, shouting, hitting our staff. These people rode a train to get here,” she told the Post. “They are deeply in survival mode. They’re here now, and they still haven’t come off of that. They’re very defensive. We’ve never had violence before.”
City officials hope a new law allowing troopers to arrest people for trespassing on city property will help and Salinas has already declared a state of emergency over the crisis.
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Biden announced Wednesday that an additional 800 National Guard troops would be sent to the southern border to help with “logistics and other functions at the border” as Customs and Border Protection struggle to deal with the influx.
Illegal crossings at the southern border have remained high throughout the Biden administration and have again approached record numbers. Much of the Biden administration’s approach has involved processing and releasing large numbers of illegal immigrants into the U.S. with distant court dates.