In the United States, the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection has reached a "breaking point" at the border

EL PASO – Along the Border Patrol Station teeming with Central American families, the chief US Border Security official on Wednesday urged lawmakers to obtain more resources and authorities, warning that the US border security authorities are not going to be in trouble. an unprecedented influx of migrants would have pushed his agency to breaking point. "

Kevin McAleenan, US Commissioner for Customs and Border Protection, gathered reporters and television cameras near an improvised pen under a viaduct where US agents treated hundreds of parents and children on a dusty parking lot. He stated that he had warned Congress against the chaos that reigned and had called for immediate action to "attack this failing cadre".

"This breaking point happened this week at our border," he said. "CBP is facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and border security along our southwestern border, and nowhere has this crisis been more intense than here in El Paso."

Just before the commissioner began speaking, a group of nine parents and children from El Salvador and Panama crossed the Rio Grande and agents took them to the foot treatment center.

McAleenan's statements reflect the growing desperation of US homeland security officials faced with an influx of borders that is about to be the largest in more than 10 years, led by Guatemalan asylum seekers and refugees. Hondurans who arrive with children and surrender to US agents. McAleenan said his agency currently has more than 13,000 migrants in his custody.

"A high number is 4,000," he said. "Six thousand, that's the level of crisis. Thireen mille is unprecedented. "

McAleenan said border patrol checkpoints were so overcrowded that CBP was releasing migrants directly to the United States for the first time in more than a decade.

Some are seriously ill, including infants with 105-degree fever, a two-year-old girl with seizures in the desert, a 19-year-old woman with congenital heart disease who requires emergency surgery, and a man with 40 years suffering multi-organ failure. Others have lice, flu and chicken pox.

"We are doing everything in our power to simply avoid a tragedy in a CBP facility," McAleenan said. "But with these numbers, with the types of diseases we're seeing at the border, I'm afraid it's only a matter of time."

He blamed the increase in smugglers and US laws that he says encourage illegal immigration, as it is virtually guaranteed that migrants will be released in the United States.

"There is no doubt about why this happens," he said.

Thousands of other Central American Americans are waiting in Mexico, in shelters in Ciudad Juarez, and US authorities estimate that they are likely to cross the river in the coming days and weeks.

Although border patrol apprehensions remain below their annual peak of 1.6 million in 2000, the nature of the increase in migration flows has changed dramatically, and this change is raising alarm. In earlier times, most migrants were adult men who could be easily deported to Mexico; Today, many of those attempting to cross the border are Central American families seeking asylum and, to a lesser extent, minors traveling alone. Because asylum seekers have the right to have their case assessed, most families are released in the United States waiting to be heard by clogged immigration courts, process that can take months or even years.

President Trump has invoked the rise of immigration to reinforce his pressure for a border wall. Migrants arriving here cross the Rio Grande, arriving where the United States already has formidable and modern border barriers. By going to agents on American soil – the strip of land between the river and the great American fence – migrants can assert their legal right to seek asylum.

Border patrol cells in the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas are also overcrowded, as are facilities in Arizona, where large groups of Guatemalan families arrive in remote desert areas to surrender, officials of the Border Patrol said.

The most dangerous overpopulation is here in the El Paso region, where border patrol posts have a capacity of 300% to 400%, leaving families in unhealthy and unhygienic operating cells with little or no no access to hot food and showers.

Most parents who arrive with a child have an appointment with an immigration judge. But the agents are so overwhelmed by the volume that they often make only superficial screening, officials said.

Some families say they were left for a week or more in deplorable conditions, but CBP officials say the average length of stay is less than three days. In December, two Guatemalan children died after being detained by the CBP, in a widespread context of influenza and other disease outbreaks. State medical examiners have not yet published autopsy reports in these cases.

The Border Security compromise that Democrats signed with President Trump last month includes $ 415 million to improve medical care and detention conditions for American families and children in custody, including the construction of safe homes. a new child-friendly treatment center in El Paso. But this facility should not open for at least six months, according to CBP officials.

Meanwhile, the number of migrants crossing the border to visit has continued to increase. The agency arrested more than 3,700 migrants on Monday, a record of one day at the border for ten years.

US authorities have arrested more than 76,000 people in February and this month they are expected to exceed 95,000, according to CBP forecasts.

State Secretary of the Homeland Security Department, Kirstjen Nielsen, met top Mexican officials in Miami on Tuesday for unannounced talks. She explained to her counterparts that cross-border trade could suffer from the growing withdrawal of CBP agents to cope with the surge in migration.

According to a senior DHS official, CBP is preparing to temporarily reassign 750 blue uniformed officers from its field operations office to assist the border patrol, and Nielsen told the Mexican minister of Inside, Olga Sanchez Cordero, that such a decision would result in longer wait times for trucks and vehicles. vehicles seeking to cross.

"Secretary Nielsen said bluntly that if we did not work together, our resources would be withdrawn, which created problems for us on the Mexican side in terms of trade facilitation, and we want to avoid that," he said. DHS senior. responsible, who requested anonymity to discuss delicate negotiations.

Nielsen is also preparing a plan to ask volunteers from the US Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration and other Homeland Security agencies to travel to the border to help flood the families. 39, Central America, said the official, adding: "We are burning right now, and we are looking for help everywhere."

Nielsen arrived in Honduras on Tuesday for talks with leaders in Central America to intensify efforts to discourage migration to the United States and crack down on smuggling organizations.