Startling drone footage shows hundreds of migrants crossing the Rio Grande and crawling through barbed wire at the United States border in Eagle Pass, Texas.
Video posted online shows hundreds of migrants neatly organized in lines behind a chain-linked fence as they wait to be processed by border officials.
It also shows several wading through the river before coming ashore on the US border with Mexico and squeezing through the barbed-wire linked fence.
In some cases, the migrants could be seen making camp on the shores as they try to dry their clothes before meeting with border guards.
Once the migrants get past the gate, they are bussed to a local processing center, which are already overfilled with more than four dozen people being held at the Eagle Pass facilities, NewsNation reports.
They are then given a ticket for a court appearance to argue their claims for asylum, but in many cases they won’t have a hearing until 2027 or even later, according to News Nation.
During that time, they are allowed to live in the United States.
As one US Customs and Border Patrol officer told Fox News Correspondent Griff Jenkins, “TCOs (Transnational Criminal Orgs) know what they’re doing.”
In recent months, the Eagle Rock pass has become inundated with migrants seeking asylum status in the United States — recording nearly 3,300 migrant crossings in a single day last week, Mayor Ronaldo Salinas posted on Facebook.
“This is unsustainable and unacceptable,” he wrote.
Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales, who represents the area, also claimed the border is past the “breaking point.”
“The unfortunate reality is that Congress and the White House have ignored the border, and now we’re past a breaking point,” he told KFOX.
“Communities along the border and cities hundreds of miles away are overwhelmed by illegal migrant surges. Policy changes have to be made to mitigate the surge — raising the ‘credible fear’ standard and deporting individuals who do not qualify for asylum is absolutely necessary to get this crisis under control.”
President Biden is now reportedly negotiating a deal with Senate Republicans to expand detention and deportations in exchange for the GOP approving aid for Ukraine, four people familiar with the negotiations told CBS News.
The president had hinted that such a deal was in the works at a press conference on Tuesday.
He said his team was “working with Senate Democrats and Republicans to try to find a bipartisan compromise, both in terms of changes in policy and [to] provide the resources we need to secure the border.”
Biden also said he “offered compromise already,” but argued, “holding Ukraine funding hostage in an attempt to force through an extreme Republican agenda on the border is not how it works — we need real solutions.”
In private, though, the president has reportedly told Senate Democrats that he would be willing to back those hardline policy changes to get his emergency funding request passed, CBS News reports.
The request would provide military aid to Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine, and would include funds to bolster US border enforcement and hire additional immigration officials.
Under his proposal, Biden would effectively reinstate the Trump-era Title 42 provision, which allowed for migrants to be deported without first being screened for asylum claims. It was passed during the COVID pandemic, but under Biden’s proposal a public health emergency would not need to be in place, according to CBS News.
The administration is also said to be willing to support a nationwide expansion of a process known as “expedited removal,” which allows immigration officials to deport migrants without court hearings if they do not ask for asylum or if they fail their initial asylum interviews.
Additionally, CBS reports, the White House would be willing to mandate the detention of migrants who are allowed into the country pending the adjudication of their claims.
And in the past, Biden administration officials and Senate Democrats have indicated their willingness to raise the initial screening standard for so-called “credible fear” interviews that migrants have to do in order to avoid being deported.
In a statement to the outlet, White House spokesman Angelo Fernandez Hernandez said the administration did not have “determined policy positions” in its negotiations.
“The White House has not signed off on any particular policy proposals or finals agreements, and reporting that ascribes determined policy positions to the White House is inaccurate,” he warned.
“The president has said he is open to compromise, and we look forward to continued conversations with Senate negotiators as we work toward a bipartisan package.”
In the meantime, Texas officials are taking matters into their own hands.
Over the weekend, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that his Operation Lone Star — a joint operation between the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Military Department to curb illegal migration — has led to the arrest of more than 488,500 migrants since its launch in 2021, and more than 37,300 criminal arrests.
“Texas is holding the line,” the governor posted on X.
He is also widely expected to sign into law a controversial immigration bill that would grant all police officers across the state the authority to arrest migrants who entered the country illegally.
Under the terms of the bill, illegal entry would be considered a misdemeanor, and those who are apprehended would be given the option to either return to their home country or face prosecution — which could lead to a conviction and subsequent detention.
The bill has already been passed by the state legislature.