‘We’re at the Limit of Our Resources,’ Says Mexican Immigration Official

Mexican immigration authorities are saying they have reached the limit of their resources regarding illegal immigration into their country. The country’s immigration officials say they are not able to stop the migration of children across their southern border.

“We’re at the limit of our resources,” Humberto Roque Villanueva, Mexico’s deputy interior minister responsible for migration, said to Reuters’ reporters Gabriel Stargardter and Julia Edwards. Mexico reportedly detained nearly 200,000 immigrants in 2015. The number is double that from the previous year.

Human smuggling has become a major cash business for the drug cartels that operate with near impunity in Mexico. Mexico launched the “Plan Frontera Sur” in 2014 to try and stop what became a horrifying visual of migrants packed on top of trains that became knows a “La Bestia” or “The Beast.” Coyotes quickly adapted to the border security plan and began renting trucks to haul the illegal aliens from Central America across the country to Texas, Reuters reported.

The human smugglers now get up to $8,000 per person to move these immigrants along the 1,200-mile journey. Reuters reported that two such trucks were stopped in Mexico in the past few weeks. One of the trucks was stuffed with 115 illegal immigrants while the other was packed with 60.

Falling oil prices have severely impacted Mexico’s budget which relies heavily on the sale of oil for its revenues. This has direct impact on the country’s ability to fight the surge of immigrants who are mostly headed to Texas. Breitbart Texas has reported extensively on the surge along the U.S. southern border of unaccompanied minors and incomplete families. In May, Breitbart Texas’ Lana Shadwick reported the apprehension of unaccompanied alien children along the U.S./Mexico border was up by 78 percent over the previous year. Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned the U.S. government in October 2015 that another surge of these children and incomplete family units was beginning to build, Ildefonso Ortiz reported for Breitbart Texas.

U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, who represents a border district in Texas, told Reuters that officials with the Department of Homeland Security said they would like to help Mexico strengthen its southern border. “When you’re constantly working at full speed and don’t have all the resources because your primary mission is to fight the drug cartels, yeah, you’re going to be stretched,” the Laredo Congressman told Reuters.

Mexico’s Roque Villanueva acknowledged that U.S. border security officials have been in Mexico providing training along his country’s southern border. He said, much like in the U.S., the immigrants are finding ways around this country’s checkpoints.

There has been a large increase in the numbers of unaccompanied children and incomplete families crossing to the U.S. since a federal judge put a limited the time the government can hold them in detention. Reuters reported government officials told them this has created the impression they can stay once they get to the United States.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas and is a member of the original Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.