Hundreds of migrants stormed the US-Mexico border in Texas state on Thursday, overwhelming National Guard troops patrolling the area, media reports said.
The US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) said that around 11:00 a.m. local time, “a large group of migrants broke through Texas National Guard wire fences located between the Rio Grande and the border wall in El Paso near Midway Drive and Loop 375.”
The Texas National Guard was able to round up the migrants and load them into vehicles to take them to an immigration processing centre. As of 3:00 p.m. local time, all trespassers had been “removed from the scene” and additional personnel were sent to the scene.
In recent days, attempts by the state of Texas to take control of border enforcement have been on hold as courts have issued conflicting rulings.
This latest incident comes during a heated battle between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and President Joe Biden’s administration over jurisdiction to arrest hundreds of thousands of migrants who illegally cross into the US each month.
Texas Senate Bill 4 (SB 4) was approved by lawmakers, allowing state law enforcement officers to arrest illegal migrants and state judges to sentence them to up to six months in prison or deport them. Repeat offenders face between two and 20 years in prison.
On Tuesday, the US Supreme Court ruled that SB 4 could go into effect, allowing the state to make arrests of undocumented migrants. But just hours later, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit put the bill on hold until further notice.
According to US Customs and Border Protection, nearly 250,000 migrants crossed the southern border in December 2023 alone, the highest monthly total on record. US immigration law allows migrants to surrender to Border Patrol agents to ask for asylum.
