Border patrol leader gives behind the scene look at border wall, popular crossings

MCALLEN, Texas (KBTX) – The southern border in Texas has sat at the top of national headlines as lawmakers work to find solutions to what leaders call a crisis.

Congressmembers and state leaders have made trips to popular crossings along the border wall and brought KBTX along. Vice President of the National Border Patrol Union led a tour for officials and media, showing just where the front lines sit.

“We’re here in Mission. We’re just a little bit West of the Anzaldua’s U.S. Port of Entry and there’s a fence line here. It’s private property, maybe it’s owned by the Catholic church, and you see their fence. There are certain parts of it where there are big gaping holes in there. People cross the river less than half a mile from here and they get picked up somewhere along this fence line. Once they come through here and get in a vehicle, they’re gone,” Cabrera said.

These are the cases that Cabrera says put the community in danger. Just days before the tour, Cabrera said a local teen was hired by the cartel to pick up migrants at the same fence. After a chase ensued with officers, there was a crash, killing the teen and injuring the migrants.

“Sixteen-year-old kid, his life snuffed out for smuggling two guys for what? One hundred dollars, $200 doesn’t make sense,” Cabrera said.

Cabrera says this is only one of the ways they interact with migrants daily. Some migrants approach the border wall where officers are stationed to turn themselves in. This is one way groups seek asylum. But Cabrera believes current rules around asylum and the reasons it can be sought are too lax.

“It’s changed dramatically. It used to be we would have downtime, we had a busy season from late January or early February till late April or early May and then it would slow down. People were coming to work the fields and pick crops. This past year we had a record number of apprehensions in December and they’re not going to pick crops in December. It’s a different group that’s coming across,” he said. “People know that if they come in we’re going to release them into the country with a court date five years away. This is the greatest country in the world, people are stepping over themselves to get here.”

After migrants searching for asylum turn themselves into officers, they’re put on a bus and taken to a processing facility. This is where background checks happen and U.s. sponsors are contacted.

Cabrera says around 85% of people applying, are approved. The other 15%, he says are denied due to warrants, or criminal and immigration histories.

Seeing the inner workings at the border was shocking for Cabrera, but he says it’s work he’s proud to do.

“When I first came down here, it was a culture shock to me and then to realize you know how much actual human trafficking goes on I had no idea,” he said. “I had somebody ask me, ‘how you how could you do that to people?’ and I told him ‘do what?’ I treat everybody like they’re my grandmother, you know, I treat everybody with respect until they give me a reason not to but as long as you do the job with compassion, then you’re doing the right thing and who’s to say if I left the guy that took my place would have that same compassion.”

Gov. Greg Abbott and state leaders will be at the border Friday, his team says this is in response to the Biden Administration’s policies.