This is the shocking moment Border Patrol opened the gates at the southern border to let illegal migrants in – just after Texas National Guard officers locked it.
Footage showed the armed agents unbuckle the barb-wire fence before streams of asylum seekers – including men, women and children – walked through.
They then stood around chatting and finally shut the barrier between Mexico and the US after dozens had filed past them into the country.
The video was roundly slammed online, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott leading the charge by branding it ‘unbelievable’ and blaming Joe Biden’s border policies for the influx.
It comes amid a surging crisis in the US as migrants from across South America ditch their homes and trek thousands of miles in search of a better life in the States.
At least two million are reported to have entered the country already this year, setting a new national record dating back 22 years.
Meanwhile Abbott has been sending bus loads of them up to New York to try to ease the pressure in Texas, causing Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams to offload them into luxury hotels across the city.
A group of around 25 migrants are seen waiting on the Mexican side of the fence, as the National Guard stands watch
Border Patrol agents, in green, arrive and are seen opening the gate as the National Guard, in their military clothes, look on
The migrants begin to enter U.S. territory, assisted by the border agents
The latest footage was captured by Fox News’s border reporting team, using drones. They said it was the first time they had seen such a scenario. It also underscores the differing approach by the state and federal teams.
Bill Melugin, Fox’s correspondent on the border, tweeted it was the first time he had seen the National Guard locking the gate and standing guard. He said: ‘Border Patrol opening gates etc to allow migrants in is not new.
‘They have to process migrants on U.S. soil per federal law. What’s new is TX is now closing the gate & denying entry at this major crossing location. Always open in months past, including this video I shot in May.’
Abbott deployed the Texas National Guard in March 2021, terming the mission Operation Lone Star. Since then the operation has ramped up to see 10,000 troops deployed along the border.
On Wednesday, he said he was outraged by the CBP’s actions. ‘Unbelievable,’ he tweeted. ‘While Texas secures the border, the federal government is enabling illegal immigration.
‘Biden’s open border policies caused this crisis. The federal government must do its job & fix it.’
Abbott is know for taking headline-grabbing measures to deal with the situation on the border, amid record-breaking arrivals, and his own re-election campaign ahead of the November election.
He launched this spring a policy of sending migrants from Texas to Washington DC on buses, if they chose, in a bid to take the problem directly to the capital.
Abbott in August extended the program to New York City, and the Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, has followed suit. So far, 10,000 migrants have been bussed north.
Under the Biden administration, CBP agents are told to focus their energies on processing migrants, rather than blocking their entry. Some agents expressed their anger at being taken away from the border duties.
‘I know the policies of this administration are not particularly popular with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, but that’s the reality, and let’s see what we can do within that framework,’ said Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security Secretary, in an address to CBP agents in January.
The new video came as CBP sources reportedly revealed total arrivals for the fiscal year 2022 had now surpassed two million – setting a new national record.
New figures released this week show that less than 200,000 migrants were encountered in July, a two month consecutive decrease in crossings. As of July, CBP encountered 1.82 million migrants in Fiscal Year 2022 – but in the first half of August, it increased to more than 2 million
Images from the border this week show groups of hundreds of migrants crossing from Mexico into the U.S. – specifically thousands were spotted in recent days crossing into Eagle Pass, Texas
A small group of migrants illegally cross the Rio Grande River from Piedras Negras, Mexico into Eagle Pass, Texas on Friday
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have encountered more than 2 million migrants at the southern border so far in Fiscal Year 2022, sources with the agency revealed to Fox. Pictured: More migrants bussed from Texas arrived in New York City on Wednesday morning
Texas Governor Greg Abbott started sending migrants on buses from his state to Washington D.C. and New York City since they are sanctuary cities. Pictured: Immigrants, including young children, disembark a bus at Port Authority in Manhattan on Wednesday
A migrant arriving in New York City flashes a thumbs-up at bystanders and media at Port Authority
New monthly data, out on Monday, showed that so far this fiscal year 1.82 million people have been apprehended. Fox reported that that figure had surpassed two million this week.
The last fiscal year – from October 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021 – saw 1.66 million arrivals: in itself a record. The CBP records date back to 2000.
CBP sources told Fox News that the migrant encounters hit 2,001,034 this weekend. The agency released figures for July that showed encounters reaching below 200,000 for the first month since February.
It was also the second consecutive month that saw a decline in encounters following four months in a row of increases.
At this point in Fiscal Year 2021, encounter figures were at 1,277,177 – more than 700,000 less than the same point this year. Meanwhile, buses full of migrants continue to offload at New York City’s Port Authority on Wednesday.
Miguel Castro, Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs for the city, received the migrants arriving from Texas on Wednesday morning.
Trump-era CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said it’s no surprise that crossings have now reached a yearly record high, claiming that the ‘Biden Administration has handed over operational control of our southern border to the cartels.’
‘They have done this by purposefully dismantling every meaningful and effective border security measure in place,’ Morgan added.
This includes Biden canceling construction of former President Donald Trump’s southern border wall the day he took office.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has resorted to creating a barrier out of shipping containers along the border with Mexico to help curtail migrants from illegally entering the U.S. at crossings in his state.
So far, Abbott has sent at least 6,000 migrants to Washington, D.C. and Ducey has sent at least 1,000 migrants out of his state by bus to the nation’s capital.
NYC Mayor Adams and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser have condemned Abbott’s efforts, which were started in mid-April and led to Ducey launching the same program a month later – bussing migrants from his state to sanctuary cities.
For months, the efforts were focused on the nation’s capital in an attempt to bring to the doorstep of lawmakers the southern border crisis.
But after Bowser called the few thousands migrants in D.C. a humanitarian crisis, Abbott saw the effectiveness of the campaign. At that point he started sending migrants to New York as well.
People, including Hasidic Jews, welcome migrants to New York as they continue to be bussed to the Big Apple from Texas
Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs Miguel Castro received the migrants arriving in Manhattan from Texas on Wednesday morning
A migrant woman holds her baby as she disembarks a bus at the Port Authority in New York after boarding in Texas
Republicans claim that Biden’s failure to visit the southern border since taking office last year proves that he does not take the migration crisis seriously and is not working hard enough to address the humanitarian issues facing border communities.
‘Joe Biden has visited Delaware nearly 50 times since entering the Oval Office,’ Representative Andy Biggs tweeted on Wednesday.
‘He has yet to visit the southern border ONCE in his entire life.’ ‘He is not a leader,’ the Arizona congressman added.
Pennsylvania Representative Guy Reschenthaler noted in a Wednesday tweet: ‘President Biden has been in office for 574 days. He hasn’t made a single trip to our southern border.’
Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the southern border crisis shortly after taking office, but her office immediately rebranded the ‘border czar’ title to clarify that she was address ‘root causes’ of migration in Northern Triangle countries.
Images have emerged from spots along the southern border where several hundred and sometimes thousands of migrants crossed in the span of just 24 hours.
At an unrelated press conference on Monday, Mayor Adams said that New York would ‘treat these people with dignity’ that Texas has failed to do
Adams is seen at the Port Authority bus terminal in midtown Manhattan on August 6, handing out supplies to the new arrivals
The Row, a $400-a-night luxury hotel based near tourist-packed Times Square, will become a shelter for as many as 600 migrant families. It is not clear if one floor will be made available or if they will be across the property
The plush hotel is understood to be working with Mayor Adams to convert part of the hotel, where rooms can cost more than $400-a-night, into an intake center
A security guard at Row NYC told DailyMail.com that migrants will be moved to rooms such as this one
Fox News has released images from Eagle Pass, Texas where groups of hundreds of migrants are rounded up after traversing across the Rio Grande River in a dangerous journey that many times leads to immediate return.
In other cases, however, migrants’ asylum claims are heard out and they are released into the U.S. to await immigration proceedings.
But officials warn that thousands of migrants never show up for their court dates and disappear into the country, remaining undocumented.
There are still two months left in FY2022, and if encounters continue at their current rate, CBP could be on track for nearly 2.5 million apprehensions in one year – far surpassing any previous year.
Morgan, who served as CBP chief from July 5, 2019 until Trump left office on January 20, 2021, said the continuously record-breaking migration figures are a direct reflection on failures of the Biden administration.
‘In just over 18 months Biden’s open border agenda, shepherded-in by it’s chief architect [DHS] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas, has resulted in more than 4.9 million migrants illegally entering our southern border – 4 million encounters and nearing one million got aways who evaded apprehension,’ Morgan told DailyMail.com
‘With more than three million now residing in the U.S., the Biden administration has added the equivalent of the entire population of the state South Carolina.’
He called the situation at the southern border a ‘self-inflicted crisis’ and said: ‘We’ve had 17 straight months of more than 150,000 apprehensions.
‘CBP has encountered more illegal aliens on the Terrorist Screening Data base this FY than the past 5 years combined. With more than 900,000+ known got-aways the reality is the next threat could already be in the U.S.,’ Morgan concluded.
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