A Texas Department of Public Safety drone operator located a group of 37 migrants riding in an open-top rail car in Maverick County. The group included 36 adults and one minor.
The DPS drone pilot, working under Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, utilized thermal imaging to locate the group of 37 migrants, according to a tweet by state officials. Special Operations Group troopers went to the scene and located the migrants.
The group of migrants consisted of 36 adults and one minor from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Texas officials turned the group over to Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents.
On the same day, Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Jason D. Owens tweeted a photo of a group of 30 migrants apprehended after a Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) pilot directed agents to their location.
During the just-ended Fiscal Year 22, Del Rio Sector agents apprehended more than 480,000 migrants making it the busiest sector of the year, Breitbart Texas reported. This was an increase of nearly 85 percent over the prior fiscal year and a massive jump from FY20’s report of only 90,000 apprehensions.
Owens reported that as of August 31, the last official report from CBP officials, his agents apprehended 322,531 single adult migrants from 118 different countries.