Vice President Kamala Harris visits the Paso del Norte Port of Entry in El Paso, Texas on June 25, 2021. U.S. Border patrol said it will stop all railway travel crossing from Mexico into El Paso on Monday. File Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI |
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Dec. 18 (UPI) -- U.S. Customs and Border Protection temporarily suspended operations of freight trains at the international railway crossing bridges on the Texas-Mexico border Monday, citing a spike in migration.
The agency suspended operations beginning at 9 a.m. EST in Eagle Pass and El Paso and sent the personnel to help take migrants into custody, working in conjunction with the Mexican government after seeing a new spike of immigrants arriving on freight trains that regularly travel from Mexico to the United States.
"CBP is continuing to surge all available resources to safely process migrants in response to increased levels of migrant encounters at the Southwest Border, fueled by smugglers peddling disinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals," Border Patrol said in a statement.
"After observing a recent resurgence of smuggling organizations moving migrants through Mexico via freight trains, CBP is taking additional actions to surge personnel and address this concerning development, including in partnership with Mexican authorities."
CBP announced the suspension on Sunday as El Paso's online migrant crisis information dashboard recorded more than 1,500 daily CBP migrant encounters, 2,695 migrants in custody and 363 daily migrant releases in the area.
Four months earlier, hundreds of migrants tried to cross the northbound railroad bridge across the Rio Grande that connects Juarez, Mexico with downtown El Paso. That surge was sparked by a false rumor that the United States would open its border on Aug. 8.
The agency also said that as of Friday, about 250 people, mostly from Venezuela, had begun waiting along the fence on the border of the United States and Mexico.
The train suspension comes in response to unauthorized migrants attempting to make their way onto freight trains in attempts to travel to U.S. border cities.
The railway suspension is one of several actions BorderPatrol has taken to cut off well-known illegal border crossing routes. Vehicle traffic remains suspended at Eagle Pass International Bridge 1 in Texas as well as bridges international bridges in San Diego, San Ysidro's Pedestrian West and in Lukeville, Ariz.
