The El Paso Border Patrol Sector has seen an increase in human smuggling activity across their checkpoints.
While the number of migrants coming into the United States on commercial buses has decreased, human smuggling attempts have increased.
Border Patrol told KFOX14 in the last week alone they stopped more than 70 human smuggling attempts in the El Paso Sector.
"We determine the immigration status of everyone in a vehicle, of commercial buses, 18 wheelers, whatever might be traveling going through our checkpoint," Carlos Rivera, the spokesperson for Border Patrol El Paso Sector, said.
During the month of January, the El Paso Border Patrol Sector has seen an average of 929 migrant encounters a day despite immigration policy Title 42, and the inclusion of more countries to the mandate, that has put a dent in the historic numbers the sector was seeing showing up at our border.
"It’s another line of defense that we have in order to protect our nation and to stop migrants and contraband from further entering the United States," Rivera said.
The El Paso Sector uses a variety of tools like license plate readers, surveillance cameras, x-ray scanners, and K9s, to curb the smuggling of drugs and people.
"Our K9 agents, those are a great asset. people ask us if they’re just for narcotics and they’re not, their primary goal is for immigration and their primary goal is to detect the odor of concealed humans," Rivera said.
Rivera told KFOX14 that in fiscal year 2022, the El Paso Sector saw more migrants originating from more than 70 different nations and that trend has continued into the 2023 fiscal year.
The top five nationalities during the month of January were:
- Mexico
- Guatemala
- Colombia
- Ecuador
- Venezuela
"Last year we saw upwards of 640 federally prosecuted human smuggling cases since this fiscal year began we’re upwards of 140 of those cases federally prosecuted successfully for the El Paso sector," Rivera said.
Border Patrol agents have seen all kinds of smuggling attempts that put migrants' lives at risk.
"When they cram more migrants than what the vehicle can handle other things we seen is when migrants are locked into toolboxes and put in dangerous conditions in hot weather," Rivera said.
Rivera credits checkpoints for preventing human smuggling attempts from turning deadly.
"If it weren’t for these checkpoints we would see a lot more tragedies than what we’re seeing right now," Rivera said.
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