Hundreds of migrants in Mexico converged at a gate on the border in Del Rio, Texas, Monday morning, and tried to force their way into the United States as Border Patrol agents and law enforcement struggled to hold the line.
The violent confrontation began when US authorities, including state troopers, started admitting select migrant families through the gate and into the US. But soon, single adults and others not chosen attempted to force their way through the gate along with the families, making it hard for US officials to close the massive door behind each family.
Eight federal agents and police officers pushed back on the gate to prevent the hundreds of people on the Mexican side from pushing their way through. The majority of migrants attempting to get through the gate were men, according to a video recording posted to Twitter amid the commotion.
A Border Patrol spokesman from the Del Rio region told The Post that the disorderly incident was brief and the rest of the encounter peaceful despite tghe early crush to get through the fence.
“U.S. Border Patrol Del Rio Sector, in coordination with law enforcement partners, encountered over 300 undocumented migrants near Del Rio, TX. These 300 plus people began as several smaller groups that congregated together to surrender themselves to law enforcement near the river. The group consisted of unaccompanied juveniles, single adults, family units, and pregnant women from several countries to include Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti,” CBP said in an email.
Agents opted to allow families through the gate one at a time, but as soon as the gate opened, others in the back mistakenly thought the entire group was being admitted and tried to push those in front of them through U.S. authorities quickly pushed back to shut the gate, CBP said.
Migrants in the crowd helped get the situation under control, telling those who were pushing that it was not their turn, a CBP spokesman said. Once the families, children, and adults were individually allowed through, they were each transported to federal immigration facilities to be processed.
While the incident was ultimately kept under control, the clash is just the latest troubling event for the Biden administration which has resisted calling the dramatic surge in migrants to the border a crisis even as more people attempt to illegally come across the international border every month.
President Biden in March named Vice President Kamala Harris to handle the problem and she has been repeatedly criticized over it, first for taking so long to finally visit the border itself and then for not stopping at the Rio Grande Valley, the epicenter of the migrant crisis, during her border visit last month.
The Border Patrol’s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post about the incident or if it had been resolved.
The Del Rio region is located in south-central Texas, where Border Patrol agents responsible for arresting people who illegally enter the country between official crossing points are seeing mostly Haitians and Cubans attempting to enter, according to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), whose district includes Del Rio.
Agents in Del Rio are encountering an average of 900 illegal immigrants daily, a high number for the region, one of nine areas into which the Border Patrol divides the 2,000-mile southern border.
Over the weekend, Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida met in Del Rio to discuss how Florida state police were helping Texas state police with the high flow of illegal immigrants.
Last month, nearly 189,000 people were encountered attempting to illegally immigrate into the country from Mexico, the highest number in 21 years. More than 113,000 of the 189,000 encounters were of single adults, while the remainder were families and unaccompanied children.