LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) -More than 7,500 tractor-trailers come through Laredo each day. Customs and Border Protection along with Border Patrol not only deal with trade but also immigration. And now with a pandemic, their jobs have become much more challenging.
“They’re mothers, they’re fathers, they’re sons, they’re daughters,” said CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan.
“Knowing that we saved someone’s life who had been abandoned and left for dead out in the middle of nowhere, that’s a phenomenal feeling that I can’t describe,” said Agent Taylor Herring.
“I would love to have that agent who did that rescue here, but unfortunately because of that exposure now he and some of those other agents are under quarantine status,” said Chief Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak.
CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan visited the Gateway City Friday to provide updates on enforcement actions from the largest federal law enforcement organization in the U.S.
He shared how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted trade, the economy, and immigration. But most of all, he painted a picture of the day-to-day exposure CBP personnel have to the virus.
“In a global pandemic, when you get done with your shift, you’re bringing that potentially back to your family,” Morgan said. “That’s a whole new level of concern, a whole new magnitude of stress that’s weighing on the CBP personnel that they could be afraid that they’re bringing a deadly pandemic back to their family.”
The CDC issued a public health order, Title 42, in response to the coronavirus to prohibit foreigners who may have contracted the virus from entering the U.S.
Acting Commissioner Morgan says because of the order, CBP is returning 91% of undocumented people to their origin countries.
He says these actions are from a public health standpoint rather than an immigration standpoint.
He also made a special point to attribute the 1,100 CBP positive cases and the 11 CBP deaths to the cartel and those illegally entering the U.S.
“Immigrants from these very countries continue to disregard the medical experts as well as our laws to attempt to illegally enter the United States on a daily basis putting everyone at risk as we’re navigating this global pandemic.”
Yet at the same time, he says a majority of the people crossing the border for non-essential travel are U.S. citizens, according to a survey the agency conducted.
“The Mexican nationals are actually the ones that are complying and heeding the advice of medical experts and coming for essential travel,” Morgan said. “What we’re actually seeing is U.S. citizens are violating non-essential travel.”
One of the commissioner’s main points is that CBP agents’ efforts are focused on rescuing what he calls “illegal aliens.”
From meth to cocaine, stash houses and tractor-trailers, Morgan places blame on the cartel, who he says endangers undocumented peoples’ lives.
It’s important to note that some of the human smugglers are in fact us citizens.
Just this year, he says Laredo law enforcement agencies have discovered 87 stash houses and arrested more than 1,100 undocumented people.
“This has to stop,” Morgan said. “I guarantee you there are people in that stash house right now that are COVID positive.”
As for the border wall, Commissioner Morgan says 300 miles have been built, and he projects a total of 450 miles to be completed by the end of the year.
Currently, the construction rate is at about 10 miles per day.
“What the president did that no other president has done like this, he went out to the experts. He went to the Border Patrol, the men and women who risk their lives every day and asked, ‘What do you need?’” Morgan said. “You know what they said? They said, ’One of the things we need is a wall system in strategic locations, and the president said, ‘You got it.’ And he has delivered.”
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September 07, 2020 at 06:20PM
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CBP Acting Commissioner tours Laredo port - KGNS
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