A Border Patrol agent was the victim of a horrific assault while attempting to apprehend migrants crossing the border with others near Sunland Park, New Mexico. On Thursday, the migrants punched and bit the Border Patrol agent as they were being taken to a deportation vehicle.
In the El Paso area alone, investigators have seen assault cases rise from 46 in 2021 to more than 70 since October of this year.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed to Fox News that an officer was “assaulted and bitten” by one of the migrants. One of the suspects was arrested for assault and taken to a hospital for a medical evaluation. The Fox News report on the incident said that CBP assisted Mexican authorities in apprehending some of the group of migrants who had fled into Mexico.
The injuries sustained by the Border Patrol agent are not life-threatening, according to CBP, and the unidentified suspect was arrested on suspicion of assault and illegally entering the United States. New York Post Reports The migrant allegedly “bite[ed]” the agent's face.
Migrant crossings along the Southwest border have dropped significantly since December, but assaults on Border Patrol agents have not. According to CBP, there have been more than 90 reported assaults on Border Patrol agents in the El Paso Sector in fiscal year 2023. There have been 73 assaults recorded since October, even as apprehensions have fallen by more than 60% since December, to 13,282 from 33,966 in August.
A CBP source told Breitbart Texas that the drop in arrests does not mean that assaults on agents will also drop. “The immigrant population most vulnerable to assaults by agents are smugglers, criminal immigrants, and people who know they will be deported to their home countries, and we still deal with these people every day,” the source explained.
Sources say the migrants, who are turning themselves in by the hundreds, are generally calm when they are arrested, knowing they will be released into the United States to apply for asylum.
“If you're going to be released as soon as you're processed, there's no reason to fight. But if you're paying smugglers thousands of dollars to get to the border and you know you're going to be deported, then you have no choice but to fight,” a source told Breitbart Texas.
The slowdown in migrant border crossings began in late December, when reports garnered widespread attention about thousands of migrants crossing the border into the small town of Eagle Pass, Texas, every day. As Breitbart Texas reported, after a series of meetings and other steps between the Biden-Harris administration and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), Mexican authorities have effectively halted the use of Mexico's Bestia rail system, which migrants had been using to reach the U.S.-Mexico border.
Randy Clark Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as Chief of the Law Enforcement Operations Division, where he led operations for nine Border Patrol stations in the Del Rio Sector, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
