By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul L. Ortiz Wednesday said a “whole-of-government” response to Del Rio’s migrant crisis is reducing the numbers of migrants under the city’s international bridge while still keeping migrants and officers safe.
“I’m not only concerned about the men and women of the Border Patrol, I’m concerned about all of the 2,100 personnel that are at this site. You have Border Patrol, you have Customs officers, you have our professional staff that is volunteering, you have the Texas Department of Public Safety, Val Verde County personnel and city personnel. You have National Guard assets that are down here. Then you have the Disaster Medical Assistance team, which is Health and Human Services. The Red Cross is sending supplies down to help out, so this is a whole-of-government approach,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz, who formerly served as chief of the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector and who considers Del Rio his hometown, said he has been at the encampment every day since arriving in Del Rio Friday.
Ortiz said morale among officers at the site remains strong.
“I can tell you, they’re awfully, awfully, motivated. They recognize that this is a humanitarian mission, and that our objective is, one, to get these migrants out of the elements as quickly as we possibly can and into a center where we can process them,” he said.
“I have walked around every day, and every one of these team members are working 14-, 15-, 16-hour days, and what I’ve seen at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day is the same: a group of individuals that are focused on the mission,” Ortiz added.
The chief said he has not personally witnessed any “incidents that would cause alarm,” though he mentioned the “horse patrol incident,” which he also addressed later in the interview.
“What we have observed, and in one-on-one contact with the migrants, has been nothing but professionalism and the utmost respect for the migrants and doing everything we can to make sure that they have what they need,” he said.
Ortiz said the agents at the camp were initially those assigned to the Del Rio area “and anybody that was relatively close.”
“We’ve now brought mobile response teams from as far away as San Diego, South Texas, El Paso, Tucson, northern border agents are working down here right now, and the same thing goes for our Office of Field Operations. I’ve talked to Customs officers from New Jersey, Miami. They’re coming from all over the country to help us here, so what we’re trying to do is keep a constant rotation so no one gets burned out. We recognize that this is a difficult, stressful environment and we want to ensure that there’s not one person having to focus on feeding for 10 or 12 hours a day,” Ortiz said.
Mid-afternoon Wednesday, Ortiz said there were 5,473 migrants left in the encampment.
“My goal is to get under 5,000, and we’re already starting to bring some of the migrants that were scattered on the east side of the bridge back under the bridge as we’ve made room,” Ortiz said.
The chief ceded that some of the removal operations have encountered problems.
“There have been about five or six incidents where agents or ICE officers have been assaulted, where plane crews have been barricaded inside the cockpit. I can tell you that we’re beefing up security on buses, vans, the airplanes that we’re using,” he said.
“Not all these events are because they’re returning back to Haiti. Some of them are moving laterally to El Paso to get processed, to South Texas to get processed. I think quite a bit of it is being contained within those areas, and we recognize that our security posture has to be very, very strong because the last thing we want is for a migrant to be harmed or hurt or for an agent to be injured,” he said.
No migrants have died, Ortiz said, but medical issues have abounded.
“We’ve had some migrants that have been in distress. Heat exhaustion and dehydration have been probably the things that we’ve addressed the most. Our medical teams are able to provide IVs, replenish fluids, all those kinds of things, and we’ve done very, very well. We delivered a baby yesterday morning, and that was amazing, because it was a combination of Border Patrol agents, Customs officers and our contract medical support personnel that were able to deliver that baby. I think there have been another 10 or 11 babies that have been delivered either at the hospital or another facility,” Ortiz said.
He added that processes at the camp are improving daily.
“It’s phenomenal. I think now we’re in a position where we have stabilized all the wrap-around service for the migrant population that we have here, outside of providing air conditioning in this environment. There isn’t anybody that’s wanting for food or water. Shelter is certainly an issue in this environment, but as we continue to get the ability to transport more people out of the area, I think we’re going to continue to see this migrant population shrink, and we’re going to certainly have to continue working with the government of Mexico to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” Ortiz said.
“We’re hoping by Sunday we can get this to a much smaller population, and then really we’re only talking about making sure that we have adequate space in our own facility to transport them,” Ortiz added.
The chief also spoke about the “horse patrol incident.”
“One thing that we did was we asked our Office of Professional Responsibility to ensure that they had a full-time presence here, 24/7, and so, we’ve dedicated professional responsibility special agents to be here on site, and they’re going around, walking and monitoring and continuing to observe what’s happening here, and if something does happen, they’re going to bring it to my attention,” Ortiz said.
He said although the horse patrol units are excellent assets out in the field, they are no longer being used in or around the migrant encampment.
He added that once the incident is fully investigated, “if there was any inappropriate behavior, we are going to hold them accountable.”
Ortiz said he understands the situation is unprecedented and stressful.
“First, I want the community to know that we’re doing everything we can to minimize the impact of this situation as much as we can, recognizing that it has put a strain on Del Rio, Texas. Secondly, I want them to know that they have the best of the federal, state and local government putting forth their greatest efforts to address the issue and make sure these migrants are taken care of, make sure our officers are taken care of and making sure this community stays safe,” he said.
—
Contact the author at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
