More Border Patrol Agents Sent to Texas, CBP Spokesperson Says

U.S. border officials on Wednesday said more Border Patrol agents were being sent to the Texas–Mexico border to shore up security along a section of the Rio Grande, which doubles as the border between Mexico and the United States.

A spokesperson for the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed the reallocation of resources in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times on Wednesday evening, responding to a question about recent reports of more agents being sent to the Laredo, Texas, border sector.

“CBP sent additional personnel to Laredo to continue to secure our border,” the statement said.

“That sector is bordered entirely by river, with no natural barriers to slow illegal crossings, which makes it a target when smuggling routes shift and evolve.”

The Border Patrol official then thanked the Trump administration for “the most secure border in American history” and touted “record low crossings” since the administration took office last year.

“We have the manpower and flexibility to move agents quickly, concentrate resources, and take enforcement action where it matters most,” the spokesperson added, citing bolstered border security.

The spokesperson did not divulge the number of agents being sent to the Laredo area.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump and White House officials have prioritized lowering the number of illegal border crossings in a bid to tamp down on illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug smuggling.

“Today our border is secure,” Trump told Congress in his State of the Union speech in February. “We now have the strongest and most secure border in American history by far. In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States.”

In an update released earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it has released zero illegal immigrants detained at the U.S.–Mexico border in the past 11 months.

The agency said that the decline in crossings and apprehensions is at “levels not seen in over three decades,” adding that daily apprehensions are also down 95 percent from the previous presidential administration, according to a DHS press release.

It also touted that March marks the “14th consecutive month of fewer than 9,000 southwest border apprehensions” at the southern border.

The DHS news release added that CBP seized more than 65,000 pounds of drugs, including over 600 pounds of the powerful opioid fentanyl.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dealt a blow to a pillar of Trump’s immigration policy when it blocked his executive order suspending asylum access at the southern border of the United States, finding that immigration laws give people the right to apply for asylum at the border.

The panel concluded that the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) doesn’t authorize the president to remove the plaintiffs under “procedures of his own making,” allow him to suspend plaintiffs’ right to apply for asylum, or curtail procedures for adjudicating their anti-torture claims.

“The power by proclamation to temporarily suspend the entry of specified foreign individuals into the United States does not contain implicit authority to override the INA’s mandatory process to summarily remove foreign individuals,” Judge J. Michelle Childs wrote for the panel.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.