The mayor of Del Rio, Texas, is calling on the Biden administration to take swift action regarding the influx of illegal immigrants in his city as over 10,000 wait under the Del Rio International Bridge, opening the possibility for a “terror threat.”
On Thursday, Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano revealed approximately 10,503 migrants are waiting under the bridge to be processed by the US Border Patrol while 2,000 to 3,000 are in detention “at any given moment.”
He revealed that the number of illegal immigrants under the bridge is close to one-third of the population of Del Rio.
After images of the thousands of immigrants under the bridge surfaced, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) instituted a two-week flight restriction over the city of Del Rio for “special security reasons” — which grounded a drone used by Fox News to document the chaos, causing some to question the timing of the order.
In a statement, the FAA said, “the Border Patrol requested the temporary flight restriction due to drones interfering with law enforcement flights on the border. As with any temporary flight restriction, media is able to call the FAA to make requests to operate in the area.”
“What’s happening is real-time threats,” Lozano said in a video statement posted to Twitter.
“We have the threat of health, we have the persons behind me, [and] yesterday we had a woman that went into labor. We have the health of COVID-19 and other communicable diseases that are found in our area because of this vast migration and all individuals just crowded underneath the bridge.”
Lozano pointed out potential safety issues, including the possibility of a stampede or a terror threat, expressing concern that “they’ll all just flock out and just run to either the port of entry or back to the river and stepping all over each other.”
As the thousands of illegal immigrants wait under the bridge for processing, hundreds have been seen and photographed traveling back to Mexico to gather supplies such as water and food. Lozano acknowledged the additional crossings, saying they open “the potential for a terror threat.”
“We need quick action from the administration, we need quick attention to this, we need a response in real time,” he added.
The Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday instituted a two-week flight restriction over the city of Del Rio for “special security reasons” — which downed a drone being used by Fox News to film the crisis.
The same day, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott moved to close six ports of entry along the border to help mitigate the number of migrants coming into the country. Shortly after, however, he switched his position, blaming the Biden administration.
“The Biden administration is in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as badly as the evacuation from Afghanistan,” he said.
“I have directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National Guard to maintain their presence at and around ports of entry to deter crossings.”
Since taking office, President Biden and his administration have received bipartisan and even international criticism for instituting policies that have created the crisis at the border.
This week, border officials confirmed they had encountered 208,887 migrants at the southwestern frontier in August. Last month marks the first time that more than 200,000 migrant encounters have been recorded in consecutive months since February and March 2000 (211,328 and 220,063, respectively).
Officials have stopped 1,323,597 illegal immigrants attempting to cross the US-Mexico border so far this year.
The Biden administration has attempted to mitigate the influx by deporting migrants under the CDC’s Title 42 health order related to COVID-19. However, on Thursday, US District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the US can no longer cite the order to deport migrant families. The CDC’s COVID-19 order led to nearly 1 million people being deported.
Sullivan’s ruling does not prohibit the Biden administration from citing Title 42 to expel single adults.
