Border Crossings: Why Eagle Pass outnumbers RGV

By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal

Along the Mexican border these days, the relatively small city of Eagle Pass, with its population of 28,130 (2020 Census), has been the focus of both state and national news when it comes to people trying to cross the river and enter the U.S.

Last month, for example, during one two-day period, approximately 10,000 undocumented immigrants turned themselves in to immigration authorities after crossing the Rio Grande, according to state Rep. Eddie Morales, Jr., D-Eagle Pass. (Source: San Antonio Express-News.)

That same week, on a Tuesday, approximately 5,000 people followed suit. (Same source.)

To say this is putting a strain on city resources and bridge crossings would be an understatement.

It wasn’t too long ago that McAllen and the RGV Border Sector were the epicenter of border crossings, especially pre-pandemic. The people lined up near the Anzalduas Bridge even two years ago, April of 2022, stretched for miles.

So why the move to Eagle Pass?

Last week, The Advance reached out to our go-to border guru, Ildefonso “Poncho” Ortiz, an award-winning journalist who has reported on Mexican drug cartels and public corruption along the border for more than 10 years, but he couldn’t be reached. Probably on an investigative news excursion into Mexico where the cell service is sometimes unreliable. For deep dives into stories of public corruption, Ortiz likes to work the story in person, despite the risk, which he shrugs off as just part of the job as he drives deep into Mexico.

Eagle Pass is Busy

Meanwhile, up pops a news story published early this week in the Washington Examiner. The newspaper has taken some hits over the years, described by some as a “conservative paper,” but according to the Columbia Journalism Review, a well-respected trade journal for professional journalists, the Examiner “is structured more or less like a mainstream newspaper — complete with clear distinctions between news reporting and commentary roles.”

That being said, according to a story published by it Jan. 21, 2024: “The most-southern tip of the United States, the Rio Grande Valley of southeast Texas, has led all other nine southern border regions in immigrant arrests since 2013, but escalating cartel violence in Mexico and the United States sending back immigrants who cross into the region have been the driving forces behind immigrants rethinking where to cross, according to government and union officials.”

Which would explain in part the shift to Eagle Pass, which is where Gov. Greg Abbott tried unsuccessfully, as it would turn out, to place those large orange buoys in the middle of the Rio Grande late last year in his attempt to thwart border crossers seeking asylum.

The RGV Border Sector is also leading the way in sending undocumented immigrants back to their country of origin, according to the same story: “The RGV is also leading the southwest border in consequences delivered. We average anywhere from 10 to 15 repatriation flights a week to the northern triangle countries (Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador),” a senior regional Border Patrol official wrote in a text message. “We also have agreements with Mexico to return Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Haitians through the ports of entry. So that has a huge impact as well.”

The drug cartels and associated criminal organizations so dominant in the state of Tamaulipas, south of the RGV, are also a deterrent for asylum seekers, according to the same story, quoting another source The Advance has used in the past — Chris Cabrera, a seasoned Border Patrol agent who also serves as a BP union rep, giving him the latitude to speak on the record: “They take advantage of these people. They’ll rob them, rape them, make them do awful things to each other just for a laugh or whatever. They exploit them. It’s a lot more dangerous in Reynosa than it is across from Eagle Pass.” (Source: Washington Examiner.)

According to the same story, in 2023, the RGV Border Sector reported fewer annual arrests/detentions than Del Rio, El Paso, and Tucson, which, again, shows the geographical shift that has taken place.

Undoubtedly, there are more reasons for the migrant shift to Eagle Pass, but at least we now have an explanation as to why it has happened.