400 Migrants Apprehended Within Five Minutes in El Paso Sector

El Paso Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended two large groups of Central American migrants after they illegally crossed the border from Mexico. Agents apprehended the two groups totaling more than 400 during a five-minute period early Tuesday.

Agents patrolling near Bowie High School came upon a group of 194 migrants at about 2:45 a.m. Tuesday. Approximately five minutes later, other agents patrolling the border further west came upon a second group consisting of 252 migrants. The second group crossed the border near downtown El Paso, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.

Officials said that during the first three hours of Tuesday morning, their agents apprehended more than 430 people. Officials called it just “another busy day for the El Paso Sector Border Patrol.”

“In the last 30 days, the U.S. Border Patrol El Paso Sector is averaging 570 apprehensions a day, with 90 percent of those being in the El Paso Metropolitan Area,” officials stated. “These numbers continue to stretch the resources available to the U.S. Border Patrol to deal with this influx and the challenges that come with it.”

During the first five months of Fiscal Year 2019 (which began on October 1, 2018) El Paso Sector officials reported a 1,689 percent increase in the number of Family Unit Aliens apprehended in the sector, according to the February Southwest Border Migration Report. In February alone, the agents apprehended 13,744 migrants including 10,509 family units and 1,517 unaccompanied minors.

So far this year, agents in the nine southwest Border Patrol sectors apprehended more than 268,000 migrants including 136,150 family units and 26,937 unaccompanied minors. All sectors except for the Big Bend and Laredo Sectors reported increases of more than 200 percent in family unit apprehensions. The Laredo Sector reported only a 77 percent increase and the Big Bend Sector reported only a 17 percent increase.