Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
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The United States’ southern border has become one of the more crime-laden places in America as Texas law enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are making arrests in numbers previously unseen.
As first reported by The Center Square, Texas officers and the Texas National Guard combined forces to make 717 arrests in a single location and on a single night last week, a major moment in the ongoing “Operation Lone Star.”
The arrests were primarily against people accused of entering Texas illegally, but it’s common for officers to find drugs and weapons on some arrestees. It’s also becoming normal for people wanted for violent crimes to be apprehended.
“Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Biden’s open border policies,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbot said in a statement.
It’s a sad reality that no matter how many alleged drug smugglers, murderers, and human traffickers are caught at the border, there will always be more.
One needs only go back as far as Friday to find stories representative of Customs and Border Protection making arrests in South Texas relating to human smuggling, sex crimes, drugs trafficking, and homicide.
Monday in Eagle Pass, near where the Texas officers made their 700-plus arrests, agents at a port of entry captured two men who were wanted for murder.
“Effective utilization of our national law enforcement databases allows officers to identify and apprehend wanted fugitives, bringing those charged with these heinous crimes to justice,” Acting Port Director Elizabeth Garduno, Eagle Pass Port of Entry, said in a statement.
Announcements like this one have become so frequent as to be easily lost in a flood of similar stories. Agents in El Paso caught their own fugitive wanted for homicide on Friday. Late last week in Laredo, police detained a man previously convicted of sexually assaulting a child.
In Edinburgh, also on Monday, agents announced they had stopped the smuggling effort of a group that attempted to use a gondola train to transport migrants into the U.S.
When it comes to drug arrests — an issue of particular concern to people fearful of the uptick in fentanyl-related issues in the U.S. — the border remains as troubling as ever.
Friday, Customs and Border Protection agents in Pharr, Texas, announced they’d seized more than $1 million worth of fentanyl.
“CBP officers intercepted this load of fentanyl, the largest thus far in port history, thanks to great teamwork and the utilization of all available tools and resources,” Port Director Carlos Rodriguez, Hidalgo/Pharr/Anzalduas Port of Entry, said in a statement. “It is important to remember how lethal fentanyl is, which is why our officers always work wearing personal protective equipment and use vital equipment which can identify these dangerous substances before officers handle them.”
These are but a few of the many, now daily, stories that emanate from the southern border, an issue that conservatives have used as a cudgel against Democrats who argue in favor of open borders or less restrictive immigration.
Republicans have continued to put pressure on the Biden administration for failing to secure the southern border, and there is a growing call to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.