EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — As officials continue to address the crisis in Del Rio, KTSM 9 is sending a team to the area to bring you exclusive coverage and keep you up to date on how this may impact El Pasoans.

Tuesday Texas Governor Greg Abbott took a trip to Del Rio and blasted the Biden administration for creating the crisis in Del Rio saying,

“Because the Biden Administration is doing nothing to secure our border because the Biden Administration has been promoting and allowing open border policies, it has been the state of Texas that had to step up and address this challenge and work with the local mayor, the local county judge, and the local sheriff.”

Abbott recently allocated an addition $1.8 billion to help secure the border and directed more than 1,000 State Troopers (DPS) and National Guard (TNG) members to Del Rio to seal the area where about 16,000 migrants, mostly from Haiti have crossed into the country from Mexico.

Abbott said that DPS, TNG and State Troopers are using their vehicles in a sort of makeshift barrier to block migrants from crossing into the United States,

“They have created a steel barrier preventing people from being able to cross the border,” Abbott said. “One day there were countless people coming across the border, then the DPS put up all these DPS vehicles, and suddenly, in an instant, people stopped crossing the border in this location. That strategy is working.”

The Governor also said that migrants who are crossing the border and trespassing on private property are being arrested and put in jail,

“It’s not the Biden Administration catch and release policy, it’s the arrest and jail policy, sending a message to these folks and anybody thinking about coming here if they’re thinking about coming and crossing this river here in Texas, that you may wind up with handcuffs on your hands going straight to jail as opposed to being released to the general population.” 

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was in Del Rio and sent a message to any migrant that is considering making the trip to the southern border.

“I want to make sure that it is known this is not the way to come to the United States,” Mayorkas said. “Our borders are not open and people should not make the dangerous journey.”

Secretary Mayorkas also said that several flights are taking off to Haiti every day, repatriating migrants to their home country. So far, according to Mayorkas, roughly 6,500 migrants have been sent to other sectors for processing.

Thomas Homan, the former Director of ICE called out Secretary Mayorkas in an interview saying that not all migrants are being sent back to Haiti.

“I watched that news conference. I wanted to throw something at the TV. I don’t know what the color of the sky in his world is, but he cannot say two things: Number one, he’s saying the Haitians are being deported. When this first happened, about three-quarters of them were released. It wasn’t until they were called on it that he decided, okay, we have got to deport some. But many are being released to ICE and ICE will release them.”

KTSM 9 is working to clarify the different reports and will be in Del Rio all week long to bring you exclusive coverage on the migrant crisis.

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