If you want to see what over 180,000 illegal immigrants being caught by Border Patrol each month looks like in microcosm, the bus station in McAllen, Texas, wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
On Saturday, KTTV-TV reporter Bill Melugin tweeted video that was captured by Fox’s drone team down in the Rio Grande Valley, where the border crisis has been felt most acutely. In it, a busload of migrants can be seen getting dropped off by the Border Patrol to get tickets elsewhere.
Melugin wrote the illegal immigrants were “given bus tickets to travel out of town after they are processed & released from custody” with notices to appear for a later court date.
“Our team says they’ve seen at least 4 bus loads of migrants being dropped off today,” he added. “ reports that buses at McAllen station can’t keep up with demand because there are so many migrants coming in, and locals have to wait 2 days to get a bus ticket.”
Our team says they’ve seen at least 4 bus loads of migrants being dropped off today. NYP reports that buses at McAllen station can’t keep up with demand because there are so many migrants coming in, and locals have to wait 2 days to get a bus ticket. https://t.co/NZlHjUfZhI
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) July 24, 2021
The Post report, published Thursday, indicated buses leaving McAllen’s Central Station have been “full of illegal immigrants released into the US by overwhelmed Border Patrol agents.”
“Since the crisis erupted following President Biden’s election, the four bus companies that operate out of the Central Station bus terminal in McAllen, Texas, have added as many as six daily routes, totaling 250 seats — but it’s still not enough, City Manager Roy Rodriguez said,” the Post reported.
“We don’t have enough private bus seats to get everyone out,” he told the newspaper.
“All seats are already purchased for tomorrow,” he added during the Wednesday interview.
“So, if somebody wants to buy a bus fare to head north, they have to wait two days.”
Greyhound Lines, which is one of the four bus companies that provide service to McAllen and is the largest bus company in the U.S., confirmed to the Post that there had been a sharp rise in demand and that “some of the increase can be attributed to migrant travel.”
The bus company added it had received no federal help to expand operations to the border but that it “would welcome assistance from the government as we continue to work diligently to provide travel support to migrant families.
“While it is not Greyhound’s responsibility to specifically transport migrants, Greyhound strives to treat all passengers with dignity,” the company stated.
The bus companies have a lot of work to do. As the Post noted, 260,000 migrants have been stopped in the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector since Feb. 1, making it the busiest in the nation. Almost half of those were in family units.
Once they’re caught, they’re processed, sent to a COVID testing facility across from the bus station, put in a center run by Catholic Charities, and then given travel arrangements further into the United States.
On average, the center sees 7,000 migrants a week; half go to their destination by bus and another half by plane.
They’re supposed to appear in court, but that’s not always what ends up happening.
“Although migrants are supposed to be released from custody with a manila envelope containing instructions on when and where they’re supposed to appear in federal immigration court, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged earlier this year that doesn’t always happen,” the Post noted.
The DHS acknowledged that was the case as early as March, just as months of record illegal immigration began being recorded. While the extent of the DHS letting illegal immigrants board buses to the interior of America without notices to appear isn’t known, one imagines it could be a bit higher now.
And when will the floodwaters crest? No one from the administration seems able to tell us. During his first news conference in office, President Joe Biden tried to pawn it off as seasonal migratory patterns. Since the Central American desert was scorching during the summer, Biden claimed, there was a surge of illegal immigrants arriving during the winter months.
Now it’s summer and June was another record-breaking month, with 188,829 illegal immigrants encountered by the Border Patrol.
Apparently, there’s something happening now that makes illegal immigration attractive enough to cross the scorching desert. I can’t imagine what it might be, but perhaps the fact only 33,049 were caught in June of 2020 — back when Donald Trump was president — might provide some kind of clue. Maybe the person in the Oval Office has something to do with it?
There are bigger problems than a bus station so choked with illegal aliens that they can’t get buses for days on end. However, it’s a microcosm of the wider problem that’s come home to roost — and one which the Democratic Party doesn’t think is that much of a concern. We may see a border crisis, but they see future Democrat voters.
By C. Douglas Golden, WesternJournal.com
