An unprecedented surge of 4,000 migrants streamed across the US border with Mexico into Eagle Pass, Texas, on Wednesday — forcing the overwhelmed city to declare a state of emergency.
Mayor Rolando Salinas said a separate 2,500-person mob crossed the border into the city illegally Monday, on top of approximately 7,200 other illegal crossers apprehended in the previous week.
The surge is the largest since 15,000 Haitian immigrants camped out under the bridge in neighboring Del Rio, Texas, nearly two years ago to the day, officials said — an incident resulted in a major humanitarian crisis.
Salinas said the new mob, many of them from Venezuela, has overrun Mission Border Hope, the only migrant shelter in the border city.
“One of the situations is that a lot of these [migrants], they’re single evils and they don’t want to listen to instructions and they’re leaving the facility,” the mayor said.
“Not all of these people come in peace.”
He also said the huge influx over the last week — close to 50% of the city’s 29,000 population — has “taken a toll on our local resources, especially our local police force and our fire department.”
Speaking to The Post Salinas also warned he had been told another 4,000 to 8,000 people in a number of separate groups are also heading to the city.
Eagle Pass has a US Customs and Border Protection processing facility which will open in 2022 with a capacity for 1,000 people. Many of those who are currently in custody are being held in an overflow facility at one of the two international bridges in the city.
Salinas warned: “Within a day or two we should be able to clear out the people under the bridge. But if we get another wave tomorrow its Del Rio all over again.”
The crisis has also forced CBP to shut down one of the international bridges so they could re-assign the agents who work there to help process migrants, according to Salinas, who added the move will cost the local economy $15,000 a day in lost revenue.
Processing the migrants typically takes several days, but could take longer due to the huge influx, border sources said, adding that some people are being sent to border facilities at Laredo and El Paso to be processed, but that creates a ripple effect as they are also dealing with increased numbers of migrants.
All migrants are screened for any criminal history or prior illegal entries into the US, with those that don’t pass muster marked for potential removal rather than being let into the US, authorities said.
Among those now detained at Eagle Pass is Roberto Emilio Vasquez-Santamaria, a 64-year-old Peruvian immigrant who is charged with murder in the slaying of another man in the Texas city, Fox News reported.
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