(RepublicanJournal.org) – With less than a year to go until the presidential election, the Biden administration finally seems to be waking up to the fact that Americans aren’t happy with its failure to deal with illegal immigration. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has just announced that it’s closing two rail routes from Mexico into Texas. The move follows a surge in migrants using trains to break into the US.
On December 17, CBP announced that as of 8 am the next day, its Office of Field Operations will suspend coverage of two railway bridges that cross the Mexico-US border at Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas. The plan is to use the agents released by suspending these operations to reinforce efforts to stop migrants crossing the border on freight trains. In a statement, the agency said, “CBP is taking additional actions to surge personnel and address this concerning development, including in partnership with Mexican authorities.”
This won’t be a decision CBP has taken lightly; with its agents withdrawn from the bridges, trains won’t be able to cross them. That has a serious economic impact. When the bridges were closed for three days in September, a billion dollars worth of produce was left sitting on trains waiting for the crossings to reopen. So far CBP hasn’t said how long they’ll be closed for this time.
Drastic action is needed, though, because the flood of migrants entering the US illegally shows no sign of slowing. In fact, it’s setting new records; in early December CBP recorded 12,000 “encounters” with migrants in a single day. The agency’s task is complicated by the way the people traffickers and migrants keep changing tactics. Right now they’re back to targeting trains; recently, thousands of them were seen lining a Mexican railroad track three hours south of Eagle Pass, waiting to jump on a passing train for the dangerous trip across the bridge. Closing the bridges is a desperate move — but the Biden administration seems to be out of better ideas.
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