Mexican cartel fires machine gun into the US with the bullets zipping just above a National Guard

Suspected members of a Mexican cartel were caught on video firing multiple rounds of bullets across the border into Texas on Thursday.

The footage was captured by a reporter amid reports that Texas National Guard members in Starr County have seen cartel gunfights increase near the border recently. 

Fox’s Bill Melugin, who claimed to have seen everything, added that the National Guardsmen were not certain whether this was a shootout or just meant to intimidate.

Soldiers told Melugin that they have been taunted in recent days by the cartel members, who are armed, while standing across the Rio Grande. 

‘The National Guard here has soldiers all over the place, as well as observation posts all over the place,’ Melugin said of the scene. ‘They’re keeping an eye out for runners and human smugglers.’ 

Roma, Texas may be one of the busiest hubs of America’s immigration crisis at the shared border with Mexico in terms of illegal crossings and cartels.  

The footage was captured by a reporter amid reports that Texas National Guard members have seen cartel gunfights increase near the border recently

The Texas Department of Public Safety said Wednesday there have been multiple instances this past week of suspected cartel gunmen spotted.

The gunmen were photographed wearing tactical vests and armed with assault rifles as they examined the border.

Officials believe the men to be involved in human smuggling operations, Fox News reports.

‘As we work closely with the Texas Military Department, any potential threats toward law enforcement and the Texas Military Department will be fully investigated, and those responsible will be arrested and charged to the fullest extent of the law,’ the Texas DPS said in a statement.

‘The Texas Department of Public Safety is committed to securing our southern border,’ the statement said.

The Texas Military Department has begun bolstering its efforts to monitor the border, building fencing, repel transnational criminal activity and countering smuggling and human trafficking.

National Guardsmen say they have been able to turn rafts trying to cross the Rio Grande away, but remain on high alert

The Texas Military Department has begun bolstering its efforts to monitor the border, building fencing, repel transnational criminal activity and countering smuggling and human trafficking

The Texas Department of Public Safety said Wednesday there have been multiple instances this past week of suspected cartel gunmen spotted

Melugin claimed to have seen multiple rafts carrying immigrants across the river into Texas. The National Guard told Melugin they were able to turn it back but they remain on high alert.

‘In the later night hours, we started seeing a constant stream of these rafts and these human smugglers, and they were bringing across hundreds of family units,’ he said.

‘You’ll see the smugglers — they weren’t afraid. One guy was shirtless. He was laughing, making jokes to us,’ Melugin added.

One claimed he spent $12,000 to have himself, his wife and his child brought into the country.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland are traveling to Mexico to discuss the crisis at the border.   

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland are traveling to Mexico to discuss the crisis at the border

While Blinken, Mayorkas and Garland (pictured above) are headed to the border, Vice President Kamala Harris is noticeably absent despite being assigned to the problem by President Biden

National Guard soldiers say they have been unable to arrest the human smugglers when they reach the shoreline for fear of retaliation

National Guard soldiers say they have been unable to arrest the human smugglers when they reach the shoreline for fear of retaliation. 

The unsettling activity at the border comes days after Border Patrol agents announced the arrests of a number of people last week who crossed the border illegally, including previously convicted sex offenders and an MS-13 gang member.

In a statement, the US Customs and Border Protection agency said Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector arrested eight migrants crossing the border, including a Guatemalan man who had been convicted of sexual abuse in 2009.

Along with the Guatemalan man, agents arrested a Mexican man in Welasco, Texas, who had been convicted of sex offenses in California, Fox reports.

Then on Saturday, officials arrested a man in Sarita who had been in prison for more than 10 years for sexual abuse charges against a child in North Carolina.

Later in McAllen, agents apprehended four migrants, including a 28-year-old MS-13 gang member. It was followed by the arrest of a Gulf Cartel member near Progresso.

Last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot launched the Operation Lone Star Grant Program, which allocated $100 million to strengthen the Texas border and deter criminal activity and smuggling through the US-Mexico border. 

‘The grant funding available through this program will strengthen our response to the crisis at the border and help keep our communities safe,’ said Governor Abbott. ‘I encourage local governments to apply for these funds to enhance our ongoing collaborative efforts to deter illegal immigration and prevent the smuggling of people, drugs, weapons, and other contraband into our state.’ 

The move comes as more than 15,000 immigrants, mostly from Haiti, have made their way into Texas and are camping on the outskirts of the city of Del Rio in makeshift tents.  

Last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot launched the Operation Lone Star Grant Program, which allocated $100 million to strengthen the Texas border and deter criminal activity and smuggling through the US-Mexico border

In recent weeks, shocking scenes of human misery emerged from the squalid migrant camp near Del Rio, as the unprepared Border Patrol scrambled to stem the flow of illegal crossings.

Migrants at the camp have suffered from lack of water, food and shelter and their only protection at times against the extreme Texan heat is the shade provided by the bridge.

Despite the warning and conditions at the camp, even more Haitian migrants are expected to make a journey into the US as Panama’s foreign minister warns of another caravan of 60,000 Haitians headed to to America. 

Trump says many Haitian migrants ‘probably have AIDS’ and the US is taking on a ‘death wish’ by accepting them: Biden administration braces for latest caravan of 60K heading to border

Donald Trump told Fox News on Thursday night that he thought Haitian migrants coming to the US ‘will probably have AIDS.’ 

Trump told Fox News accepting Haitian migrants into the US would be a ‘death wish’

The former president said accepting the asylum-seekers would be a ‘death wish’ for the US.

A record-shattering number of Haitian migrants have come to the US in the last month, and the trend doesn’t appear to be stopping as more people continue to pour into the Colombian town of Necocli, a popular spot for smugglers to shepherd people through the perilous Darien Gap.

The Darien Gap is a 66-mile stretch of rainforest between North and South America. Its dangerous terrain is part of the reason it’s been left undeveloped and why it poses such a great risk to the people crossing it now.

More than 70,000 migrants have traveled through the Darien Gap this year, Panamanian authorities have said. 

Most of the migrants in recent months have been Haitians, many of whom had been living in Chile and Brazil since the 2010 Haitian earthquake.

‘So, we have hundreds of thousands of people flowing in from Haiti. Haiti has a tremendous AIDS problem. AIDS is a step beyond. AIDS is a real bad problem,’ Trump told host Sean Hannity.

‘Many of those people will probably have AIDS and they’re coming into our country. And we don’t do anything about it. We let everybody come in.’

Migrants, most from Haiti, depart a base camp towards the jungle in the infamous Darien Gap while on their journey towards the United States on October 7. The number of Haitian migrants heading to the US has skyrocketed in recent weeks

Mostly Haitian migrants break camp at sunrise on October 7 before trekking through the 66-mile stretch of undeveloped, unpoliced rainforest

More than 70,000 migrants have traveled through the Darien Gap this year, Panamanian authorities have said 

He added, ‘Sean, it’s like a death wish. It’s like a death wish for our country.’ 

Trump infamously once referred to Haiti as a ‘sh*thole country’ during a meeting with bipartisan senators at the White House in 2018. 

At another point in the interview Trump claimed without proof that ’50 countries’ including Honduras, Mexico and El Salvador are ’emptying their prisons’ and sending inmates to the US. 

‘I hear it’s 50 countries, they’re emptying out their prisons into the United States,’ he said. ‘Some of the toughest people on Earth are being dumped into the United States because they don’t want them.’

‘So these people that are the roughest prisoners there are anywhere are being dumped into the United States for us to take care of them.’

He said ‘hundreds of thousands of people’ were pouring in every two weeks.

Nearly 28,000 Haitian migrants were encountered by Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border in Fiscal Year 2021, which ended September 30. 

In 2020, the number was 4,395. 

‘We have hundreds of thousands of people pouring in every two weeks, and coming from countries – we don’t even know from where they’re coming and you know, they’re emptying out many countries,’ Trump said.

Many of the Haitians now embarking on the dangerous journey to the United States fled their country for South America in 2010, and are now are leaving for the US through towns like Acandi in Colombia and trekking across the Darien Gap. The COVID-19 pandemic has been blamed for upending much of South and Central America’s economy, forcing people already in a precarious position into desperation

A group of migrants trek from a base camp toward the jungle in the Darien Gap on October 7

The passage, which can take up to a week, is considered the most dangerous stretch for migrants traveling from South America to the US 

Most of the Haitian migrants attempting to travel to the US have been living in Brazil and Chile since the 2010 Haitian earthquake

Nearly 28,000 Haitian migrants were encountered by Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border in Fiscal Year 2021

Last month around 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants camped near a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. 

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at the time, ‘It is unprecedented for us to see that number of people arrive in one discrete point along the border in such a compacted period of time.’ 

Images of the cramped, squalid tent city they were living in prompted a humanitarian outcry against the Biden administration. 

Earlier this week the Washington Examiner reported that border officials are bracing for an incoming surge of as many as 60,000 Haitian migrants. 

It comes against the backdrop of a record-setting number of asylum-seekers coming to the southern border since President Biden took office. 

Republican lawmakers have blamed Biden’s rollback of ‘inhumane’ Trump-era border policies as the driving force behind the spike for sending a message that the US is ‘open’ amid a deadly COVID-19 pandemic.

Migrants from Haiti spend a night at a base camp on October 6 before trekking through the infamous Darien Gap to try and claim asylum in the US

Earlier this week the Washington Examiner reported that border officials are bracing for an incoming surge of as many as 60,000 Haitian migrants

Nearly 28,000 Haitian migrants were encountered by Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border in Fiscal Year 2021, which ended September 30

Trump infamously once referred to Haiti as a ‘sh*thole country’ in 2018 (pictured: Migrants camped out in Las Tekas, Columbia before continuing on their journey to the US)

A record-setting number of asylum-seekers came to the southern border since President Biden took office 

One of Biden’s first acts in office was halting construction on Trump’s border wall. DHS has been engaged in an ongoing legal battle to repeal his Remain in Mexico policy. He’s also rolled back the scope of Border Agents’ law enforcement and patrol duties, leaving parts of the southern border thinly guarded. 

But Biden’s had a tough time pleasing even his own side with his border policies.

His White House is fighting in the US court system to keep Trump’s Title 42 policy in place, which allowed border agents to immediately expel migrants apprehended at the border due to a possible COVID-19 health risk.

Despite Biden significantly rolling back its enforcement, immigration advocates and progressive Democrats have attacked the president for not sticking to his promise to re-write Trump’s severe immigration policies. 

In his Thursday interview Trump appeared to take a jab at Biden and Democrats’ border handling, declaring, ‘the border was the strongest we had probably ever, and all they had to do was leave it alone.’

‘Somebody doesn’t love our country, when they allow this to happen to our country,’ he said.