Gregg Abbott has warned migrants trying to enter his state that if barbed wire and border guards don’t stop them, alligators will.
Texas’ governor released disturbing images of a 15-foot alligator sunbathing in the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, which has been a hot spot for the surge of migrants heading to the United States.
Thousands of alligators are believed to live in the river that meanders for hundreds of miles between Texas and Mexico and is already a deadly obstacle for those attempting to cross.
The footage was filmed by an Eagle Pass resident and attracted more than 8,000 likes when the governor retweeted it on Sunday.
“There are alligators in the Rio Grande,” he wrote. ‘For his information, there are warning signs posted in some sectors. Cross at your own risk.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued his grim warning on Sunday after local resident Luis De La Torre filmed the 15-foot alligator in Eagle Pass.
Migrants trying to ford the section of the river already have to navigate miles of barbed wire and a 1,000-foot floating barrier of buoys installed by order of the governor.
The governor (seated) hosted Donald Trump’s visit to the Shelby Park hotspot in February.
About 130,000 southern border crossings were recorded in April, down from an all-time high of 302,000 in December.
Crossings in Texas have been cut in half as smuggling cartels turn their attention to Arizona and New Mexico, and Abbott hailed the numbers as a vindication of Operation Lone Star, his hardline attempt to bolster border security. in the state.
“Texas stepped up to do President Biden’s job: securing our border,” he tweeted Friday.
‘Our tough resistance is working. Texas is building our own border wall, putting up miles of razor wire and confiscating more than 476 MILLION doses of deadly fentanyl.’
The governor is embroiled in legal challenges with the federal government over his attempt to give Texas authorities the right to arrest and deport immigrants, and over his installation of a 1,000-foot floating barrier of buoys across the river in an attempt to discourage crossings.
He is also being challenged after stringing miles of razor wire along a 29-mile section of the border around Eagle Pass and completely blocking Border Patrol agents in a 2.5-mile section of Shelby Park from the city.
There have been no fatal alligator attacks in the river for the last ten years, but this is not the first time Abbott has warned of the danger.
In May of last year, he tweeted images of a large adult man watching members of the Texas National Guard as they floated by his patrol boat outside Eagle Pass.
In April, around 130,000 migrant crossings were recorded across the southern border
But illegal border crossings have averaged more than two million a year since Joe Biden took office in January 2021.
Millions of people have entered the waters of the Rio Grande to reach the United States and 2,700 are believed to have drowned since 1997.
Texas Parks and Wildlife says alligators have always been common in the waters of the southern United States but their danger is increasing.
“As human populations in Texas continue to expand, there have been an increasing number of encounters between people and alligators,” their website explains.
Last month’s fact checkers were discredited a couple of images created by AI posted on TikTok that appeared to show U.S. Border Patrol officers placing alligators in the stretch of the river in Texas as a security measure.
But the post quickly went viral, with many expressing support for the idea.
No agency counts the number of people who die trying to cross the river, but Stephanie Leutert of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas estimates that at least 2,700 migrants drowned in it between 1997 and 2022.
The human cost of the crisis was highlighted in 2019 when the body of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Ramírez was photographed dragged to a bench, hugging his dead one-year-old daughter Valeria, outside Brownsville.
And in January of this year, Victerma de la Sancha Cerros, 33, died along with two children, Yorlei Rubi, 10, and Jonathan Agustín Briones de la Sancha, eight, in Shelby Park, a few days after Abbott will close access to the United States Border Patrol.
Illegal immigration has reached an all-time high under President Joe Biden, but the Senate dismissed articles of impeachment brought by House Democrats against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas earlier this month.
The dangers of the crossing were vividly highlighted in 2019 when the body of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Ramírez was photographed washed ashore, hugging his dead one-year-old daughter Valeria, outside Brownsville.
In January of this year, Yorlei Rubi, 10, and Jonathan Agustín Briones de la Sancha, eight, died along with Victerma de la Sancha Cerros, 33, in the waters of Shelby Park, a few days after Abbott will close access to the United States Border Patrol.
Congress has failed to approve an agreement that limits migration and it seems certain that the issue will be at the center of the electoral campaign before the general elections in November.
Biden is currently considering using an executive order implemented by former President Donald Trump to limit the number of migrants who can apply for asylum at the southern border.
“We are examining whether or not I have that power,” Biden told Univision’s Enrique Acevedo in an interview recorded in early April.
“Some suggest that I should go ahead and try,” the president said when speaking to the Spanish-language broadcaster. “And if the court shuts me down, the court shuts me down.”