AUSTIN, Texas — A group of more than 700 immigrants came across the U.S.-Mexico border onto private ranch land in Eagle Pass, Texas, early Thursday, making it one of the largest single crossings in history.
The hundreds of noncitizens streamed through the Rio Grande in a processional order shortly after 3 a.m. local time, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency tasked with safeguarding the nation’s borders.
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One of two Border Patrol agents who apprehended and processed the immigrants and spoke with the Washington Examiner Thursday night said that Texas National Guard soldiers deployed to the border under Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star initiative ran surveillance cameras and were the first to detect the group.
Soldiers at the National Guard’s listening and observation post alerted Border Patrol agents in the vicinity of the group, and agents responded to the ranch where immigrants arrived.
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The same agent said the notification was not out of the ordinary because groups of 100 to 300 people are pushed across the river near Eagle Pass before dawn every day.
“It’s just — they kept coming this time,” the first agent wrote in a text message.
A total of 704 immigrants were taken into custody and transported to Border Patrol facilities for intake, the second agent said. CBP confirmed the number in its statement on the incident.
The 704 consisted of 535 Cubans, 74 Nicaraguans, 49 Colombians, 31 Dominicans, nine Peruvians, three Ecuadorians, and three Mexicans. Nearly half — 320 people — were adult men. One hundred and ninety women and 12 unaccompanied children were also in the group, as well as 74 families, which included at least two people per family.
Border Patrol’s largest processing center is located 12 miles outside Eagle Pass and is a massive white tent structure known as “Fire Fly” for the name of the road it was built on this spring to hold hundreds more immigrants due to overwhelmed facilities across the region.
The largest group of immigrants to come across the border at one time happened in 2019 during the Trump administration. A group of 1,036 people was apprehended outside El Paso, Texas. Prior to that event, the largest group record was 400 from earlier that year.
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Pushing large groups across the river is a tactic that the Mexican cartels use knowing that those who surrender to the Border Patrol have a higher chance of being released into the U.S., so there is less need to evade arrest.
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When agents are pulled into a specific area to apprehend and transport large groups of single adults and families, as in the Thursday scenario, other areas of the border are left unmanned. Smugglers exploit those vulnerable spots, running drugs and immigrants with criminal records or gang affiliations in those spots, which cameras and other technologies are able to detect.
A large group is defined by CBP as 100 or more people crossing at one time. Across the nine regions that the Border Patrol breaks the southern border into, the Del Rio Sector, which includes Eagle Pass, has accounted for 90% of all large group apprehensions since the government’s fiscal year began on Oct. 1.
