January 1, Texas Border Patrol Overwhelmed by Camouflaged Men

Border Patrol agents in West Texas are overwhelmed by a growing number of large groups of men taking extensive measures to evade authorities, such as wearing camouflage and covering their footprints.

While thousands of illegal migrants crossed the Rio Grande Valley this past year intended to surrender to agents and earn passage into the country, the men coming through West Texas aim to evade authorities entirely.

“Our area varies a little bit different from the Del Rio Sector because instead of them just crossing over within minutes, it takes days, and there’s specific areas that they can cross,” said Lt. Elizabeth Carter, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). “They’re literally risking their lives to cross illegally in the first place and then to make that travel — anywhere from five to six days.”

In addition to wearing camouflage, the men sometimes attach carpet pieces to the soles of their shoes to avoid leaving footprints. Their tactics seem to be working, as officials say they don’t capture many.

“Out of 100, we’re lucky if we catch 15 of them,” said Sgt. Jimmy Morris, a tactical pilot for Texas DPS.

The migrants typically pay cartels to bring them to the border. Once across, the groups are told to walk to Highway 90 or Interstate 10, where drivers will pick them up in several days. At that point, the migrants remove their camouflage and backpacks to avoid suspicion, leaving them behind in the bushes near the road. If agents manage to catch a group, they often scatter and attempt to outrun the authorities.

“They would cross in these very large groups of 50 to 60 and then split up into three or four smaller groups just to kind of stretch our manpower,” said Jeffrey Hammes, president of the National Border Patrol Council’s Big Bend union chapter.

Though they’ve been seeing camouflage-clad individuals since around 2014, Hammes said the numbers they’re seeing now are unprecedented. Last month, agents apprehended more than 3,600 people in the West Texas region.

The worry is that the billion-dollar criminal smuggler organizations could start taking advantage of the “overlooked” region, which doesn’t have any tall barriers along the border.

“If we were to get 5 percent of what they got in Del Rio underneath that bridge, that would shut us down. So are we next where all the cartels are going to realize, ‘Hey, let’s push everyone through Big Bend,'” Hammes said. “The potential is there for a really bad situation to come down on our sector if we were to get even a portion of the traffic that our neighboring sectors are seeing.”

The area’s staffing is another possible concern. Big Bend’s agents had to leave their normal posts to assist with locations including Del Rio. Since Hammes started in 2009, Big Bend cut half of its personnel. The Texas DPS started sending local officers to help with the border and nearby highways earlier this year.

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Camouflaged men evading border agents near Blue Origin Texas launch site