The arrest of Bangladeshi nationals crossing the border illegally from Mexico into Texas in the Laredo Sector topped 500 for the year. Agents have now arrested 502 Bangladeshi nationals since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2018.
Laredo Sector Border Patrol officials told Breitbart Texas Tuesday afternoon that the arrests of Bangladeshi nationals in this single border sector reached 502 late last week when agents arrested 12 more migrants from that nation.
The arrests of the 12 illegal immigrants from Bangladesh came in two separate incidents on August 3rd, officials stated. At least four of the illegal immigrants were reported to be juveniles. This is the first time this year that Laredo Sector agents have seen juvenile-age Bangladeshi migrants, officials explained.
In one of the incidents, Laredo Sector agents encountered a group of nine people walking towards the Tex-Mex Railyard, information provided to Breitbart Texas by sector officials revealed. Eight of those people were determined to have been transported through the Mexican cartel’s human smuggling pipeline from Bangladesh. The ninth person came from Sri Lanka.
The second incident involved a group of illegal immigrants who crossed the border near the Santa Rita subdivision in Laredo. Agents learned that all four of the migrants were Bangladeshi nationals.
Laredo Sector officials told Breitbart Texas that their sector alone accounts for about 52 percent of all Bangladeshi nationals apprehended along the entire southwest U.S.-Mexico Border.
The rate of illegal crossings by Bangladeshi nationals is rising. It took nearly eight months for the total to reach 251 in late May 2018, Breitbart Texas reported. The number reached 400 just five weeks later. Approximately 100 more crossed in the past few weeks ending on August 3.
Hundreds of miles of open river border in south and central Texas have made the area a prime human smuggling corridors of operation for Mexican drug cartels who charge the Bangladeshi nationals approximately $27,000 each to be smuggled from their home county through Mexico and into the U.S.
Because of the open borders in this and the Del Rio Sector, large numbers of what Border Patrol officials refer to as “Special Interest Aliens” have made their way into this part of Texas. Special Interest Aliens include illegal immigrants from countries with connections to terrorism.
Breitbart Texas broke the news on Monday that a Pakistani national was caught sneaking across the border in the Del Rio Sector. A trusted source operating under the umbrella of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spoke with Breitbart Texas under the condition of anonymity and initially reported that agents assigned to the Comstock Station discovered a Pakistani national attempting to hide and avoid apprehension. The source said the Pakistani man was not attempting to turn himself in to seek asylum but was attempting to avoid detection. Del Rio Sector officials later confirmed the apprehension of the 34-year-old Pakistani male.
In May, Border Patrol officials in the Laredo Sector sounded the alarm when two Syrian nationals were apprehended after sneaking into Texas from Mexico. Agents working near the Santa Rita Subdivision in Laredo encountered three men who just crossed the Rio Grande River from Mexico. The agents arrested the men and took them to the station for processing. An interview with the migrants uncovered that they traveled to Mexico from Syria and Bangladesh.
And in late June, Laredo Sector agents arrested an Iranian national after he attempted to sneak into a Laredo area near Highway 83 where there is no physical barrier separating Laredo from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.
“This was something we hadn’t seen in more than a year,” Laredo Sector Chief Patrol Agent Jason D. Owens told Breitbart Texas in a recent phone interview. Owens said that unlike the Bangladeshi nationals, the Iranian was not attempting to turn himself in. “He was attempting to evade detection and apprehension by our agents,” the sector chief explained.
Owens said that the FBI and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force conducted interviews with the Iranian before he was turned over to immigration officials for processing. He said the Iranian was carrying multiple cell phones and currency from six different countries.
Officials told Breitbart Texas they do not know the intention of these illegal aliens from countries with connections from terrorism but that they prove that there is indeed a pipeline.
“We don’t know the intentions of these foreign nationals we caught sneaking across the border into Texas,” U.S. Border Patrol Agent Hector Garza told Breitbart Texas in his capacity as president of the National Border Patrol Council 2455 during an interview earlier this year. “What we do know is that if the cartel-connected smugglers can bring people with good intentions across the border, they can also bring people with bad intentions.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, GAB, and Facebook.
(Disclosure: Breitbart Texas sponsored the Green Line podcast for the NBPC in an effort to provide a platform for agents to inform the public about the realities on the border and what Border Patrol agents face. Director Brandon Darby received an award from the Laredo chapter of the NBPC for his work in helping to defend and bring a voice to Border Patrol agents. Breitbart News assisted in covering funeral costs for a slain Border Patrol agent previously.)