Global News

Texas is sending 1,000 more National Guard troops to its border with Mexico in response to the continuing influx of migrants, many of them families.

“The crisis at our southern border is unlike anything we’ve witnessed before and has put an enormous strain on the existing resources we have in place,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a Wednesday briefing with legislative leaders at the state Capitol. “With the deployment of these troops, we are taking action to confront the crisis at the border and keep potentially dangerous criminals and illegal activity out of our communities.”

Abbott said the additional troops would serve a “short-term mission” assisting at temporary holding areas and ports of entry. The extra troops bring the total serving on the Texas border to more than 2,000, according to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Nearly 600,000 migrants have been caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border since the fiscal year began in October, a 13-year high, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Another 82,808 migrants, many of them traveling in families, have arrived at the border seeking asylum during the same period.

Migrants have overwhelmed Border Patrol temporary holding areas, which were designed for 4,000 people but hold about 15,000, according to John Sanders, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. The most severe crowding has been in El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley, where massive emergency tent shelters have been erected in recent months.

The Border Patrol can transfer migrants to longer-term detention facilities run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but those facilities already hold about 52,560 people, 5,000 more than the agency forecast in its 2019 budget.

The facilities may take in even more migrants next week. ICE officials have said they plan to begin large-scale raids across the country to apprehend more than 2,000 people who have deportation orders against them.

On Friday, House Democrats unveiled a $4.5-billion emergency funding measure for the Border Patrol and other agencies caring for migrants. It is scheduled for a floor vote next week.

The Health and Human Services Department is planning to open emergency shelters at Ft. Sill Army Post in Oklahoma and south Texas to house 3,000 youths while other shelters have started scaling back on new programs and supplies, officials said.

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-border-national-guard-migrants-20190621-story.html