Border detentions increase in Valley 80K immigrants apprehended since October 1 image MGN Online Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on pinterest_share More Sharing Services 1 By LAURA B. MARTINEZ The Brownsville Herald | Posted 9 hours ago As President Barack Obama tries to find a way to act without Congress on easing deportations of undocumented immigrants in the United States, the number of apprehensions of these immigrants in the U.S. Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector appears to be skyrocketing. As of Friday, about 80,000 undocumented immigrants had been apprehended since October 2013 — the start of the fiscal year — in the RGV sector that runs from Brownsville to Corpus Christi. This is about a 68 percent increase compared to the same reporting period last year, said agent Daniel Tirado, spokesman for the Border Patrol’s RGV sector. The 80,000 undocumented immigrants apprehended included not only Mexican nationals but “other than Mexicans” or OTMs as well. The OTMs include people from Honduras, Guatamala and El Salvador. Just this past weekend and farther north, Border Patrol agents apprehended 12 undocumented immigrants near Encino Ranch 10 miles west of Armstrong, court documents state. They were from Mexico, Hoduras, Guatemala and Ecuador. Tirado said the raiding of stash houses and increase in apprehensions is due to cooperation with local law enforcement agencies, the community reporting suspicious activity to lawmen and an increase in the number of agents in the RGV Sector. “A combination of intelligence, a combination of concerned citizens calling us or maybe the individuals being held against their will in the residence are calling 911, people reporting it to local police departments, I think it is a combination of everything (behind the increases),” Tirado said. Authorities said more than 3,000 agents are stationed in the RGV Sector, the largest number the agency has ever had here. In the past two weeks, more than 200 undocumented immigrants had been found in stash houses in the Valley, most of them in the upper Valley. Tirado said stash houses in the lower Valley are not as common as they are in the upper Valley; most are found around Weslaco and farther west. He added he could not “speculate” as to why there are not a lot of stash houses in the lower Valley. In the previous fiscal year, more than 154,000 immigrants were detained, reports indicate. With seven more months left in fiscal year 2014, RGV Sector officials aren’t sure what the numbers will be when the year ends, Tirado said. Meanwhile, Republicans have warned Obama that if he tries to bypass Congress on the deportation issue it could hurt the chances of overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, The Associated Press reported. Obama’s allies have requested that he find a way to slow deportations. According to the AP, nearly 2 million people have been deported from the United States under the Obama administration. The president and congressional Democrats have pushed for a sweeping immigration bill that would, among other things, create a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally who don’t pose a threat to national security or public safety. A Senate bill passed last year called for 20,000 additional Border Patrol agents, the completion of an additional 700 miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the deployment of high-tech devices such as drones to increase surveillance. Republicans have objected to allowing immigrants gain citizenship before the border is secured. The Associated Press contributed to this report. We Recommend
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 12:25:01 +0000
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