Thread: Non-Mexican immigrants swamp Texas border city

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtm ... ID=8644283

Non-Mexican immigrants swamp Texas border city
Mon May 30, 2005 06:34 PM ET


By Tim Gaynor

EAGLE PASS, Texas (Reuters) - The number of illegal immigrants from Central America and Brazil caught crossing into this Texas border city jumped threefold in the past year as they rush to exploit a legal loophole, U.S. authorities said.

The U.S. Border Patrol has nabbed 15,195 non-Mexican migrants crossing over the Rio Bravo around Eagle Pass in the past eight months, a rise of almost 240 percent on the same period last year, officials said on Monday.

Agents say what they call "OTMs" -- "other than Mexican migrants" -- now account for 90 percent of all migrant detentions in the sweltering trade and ranching hub of 40,000 people. That is up from the 5 percent to 10 percent nationwide normally recorded by the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Officials in Eagle Pass attribute the dramatic spike to news filtering out in countries in Central and South America that U.S. authorities are unable to hold the influx of immigrants in swamped local detention facilities.

"Word is out that we are unable to detain the other than Mexican crossers, and they are exploiting a bottleneck in the system," Dennis Smith, the Border Patrol's spokesman for the local Del Rio Sector, told Reuters.

Whereas Mexican citizens are processed and swiftly deported, non-Mexicans are either detained or let out on bail pending an appearance before an immigration court.

Following a security and criminal background check, those not deemed a security threat or found to have a criminal record, are released with a notice to appear before an immigration judge within 30 days.

The immigration summons, dubbed "the diploma" by local residents in the remote border community, allows them to travel on into the United States legally, crossing Border Patrol road blocks set up to collar illegal migrants in south Texas.

Agents say the rush to reach Eagle Pass has been boosted by good communications links from cities in the Mexican interior, and they say they can time immigrant arrivals from the city of Piedras Negras to the south by using the Mexican bus schedule.

"You see them cross over the river together in a line and come round like a snake to where the (patrol agent's) flash light is ... and just give themselves up," said veteran agent Randy Clark.

STRAIN ON RESOURCES Continued ...

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

I know that when I show this to my husband his VEINS WILL BE POPPING OUT of his head.

He's been warning that Islamic crazies will / have been using this as an entry point. They can pass with ease as a Latino. Now if they can't HOLD THEM we'll have many more serious problems than we've seen already! This situation is so beyond the normal dangers..........it's URGENTLY DANGEROUS.

The Government, as I've said once before, is trying to kill us.

There is no other explanation for this total insanity.

GET TROOPS TO THE BORDER NOW!!

Homeland Security Knows about this. They just wont do anything about it.