Texas Border Business
EDINBURG, TX – Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol (RGV) agents apprehended 22 migrants from three foiled smuggling events on south Texas highways, one involving a stolen vehicle.
On the evening of Sept. 14, Kingsville Border Patrol Station agents encountered a suspicious white GMC pickup truck with its lights off, on the side of U.S. Highway 77 near Riviera. Moments later, agents encountered the same vehicle on the road and initiated a vehicle stop. The driver failed to yield, leading agents on a vehicle pursuit. During the pursuit, a grey Chevrolet pickup truck overtook the agent’s vehicle, slowed down directly in front of the Border Patrol vehicle in attempts to impede agents, allow the white truck to distance itself. Both trucks drove off road into an open field and came to a stop. Multiple subjects “bailed out” and fled into the brush from both vehicles. Additional backup units arrived to assist. Nine migrants were taken into Border Patrol custody, however the drivers were not located. The pickup trucks had fictious Texas paper tags, one of them was reported stolen out of Houston. Kleberg County deputies took custody of the two vehicles.
Also, on the evening of Sept. 14, an RGV agent conducted a vehicle stop on a grey Ford Fusion north of Edinburg. The front seat passenger immediately fled from the stopped vehicle. Agents interviewed the driver and remaining occupants, who were all determined to be illegally in the United States. Texas Department of Public Safety troopers (DPS) and agents searched for the subject that fled, to no avail. Agents seized the vehicle and transported the migrants to be processed.
Early on Sept. 15, RGV agents conducted a vehicle stop on a red Nissan Titan truck near Encino. Then the pickup truck came to a stop, the occupants bailed out and fled into the nearby brush. Agents and a DPS trooper at the scene apprehended nine migrants, but the driver was not located. The migrants were nationals from Honduras and El Salvador.
All subjects are being processed accordingly.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation’s borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.
