Texas arrests 70 more migrants on rioting charges after SIX HUNDRED illegal crossers stormed National Guard troops at El Paso border
- Nine migrants had already been charged with attacking National Guard troops
- A law enforcement source said the riot was instigated by ‘a dozen leaders’
- Knives and shafts were reportedly seized from migrants after riots
Authorities in Texas have arrested 70 migrants who broke through a line of National Guard troops on March 21 with the intention of storming past the border with El Paso.
The seventy detainees were part of a group of six hundred illegal crossers present that day who climbed over a triple layer of barbed wire and then confronted the National Guard on the other side.
In a video of the riot The group of migrants, captured by the New York Post, initially appears to throw their hands in the air. The scene quickly turned violent as some of them squeaked through several National Guard members who were closing the gap between a broken fence.
“There were probably only about a dozen ring leaders and then the rest (of the migrants) followed,” a law enforcement source who chose to remain anonymous explained to DailyMail.com.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained more than 200 migrants that Texas wants to arrest and charge in connection with the incident, an agency official told the New York Post. The same official reportedly said that federal authorities “are not as cooperative as the Border Patrol.”
A group of about 600 migrants who entered the US illegally rushed the border in El Paso, Texas on Thursday
A migrant observes others breaching the concertina wire on the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday, March 21, 2024. The migrants hoped to be processed by border police.
About 600 migrants breached barriers on the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas
Members of the Texas National Guard are working with Border Patrol to coordinate migrants who have crossed the border from Mexico and made their way through concertina wire as they await processing by the Border Patrol while being stopped on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande , in El Paso, Texas
The 70 migrants detained by Texas authorities are charged with rioting.
On Wednesday, Texas also charged the nine migrants who allegedly attacked National Guard troops. Some of these actions were included in the video.
The incident took place at Gate 36, where some of the approximately 600 migrants tore down barriers built by state authorities. They then attacked the National Guard soldiers, hoping that if they got far enough, Border Patrol agents would transfer them to the US.
Many of these asylum-seeking migrants had chosen not to surrender immediately because this is a known place to surrender to U.S. Border Patrol agents as they were in limbo due to a Texas law SB4.
The controversial law authorizes state and local police in the Lone Star State to arrest illegal immigrants, a right reserved only for federal officials such as the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Migrants breach the infrastructure set up by the Texas National Guard on the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday
A migrant shows an injury he claimed to have suffered after a Texas National Guardsman forced him to return south from the barrier set up by the Texas National Guard on the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas
Migrant families who were part of the 600-strong gang are awaiting processing by U.S. Border Patrol
The law, which has been banned several times by federal courts in recent days, was then allowed to take effect for a few hours on Tuesday before being blocked again on Tuesday evening.
The legal whiplash left many migrants unsure what would happen to them if they surrendered to Border Patrol.
The crowd camped in the no man’s land between the Rio Grande, north of the river that divides the US and Mexico.
The river is the international border, not the border wall.
On Thursday morning, the migrants climbed the fencing in coordination and ran to the border wall, presumably turning themselves in by force.
A National Guard source told the New York Post that they had seized knives and shafts from some involved in the riot. And since the riot, Texas has reportedly sent more National Guard members and Department of Public Safety troops to El Paso, while also replenishing some of the border wire damaged by the illegal crossings.