By Karen Gleason
Part Two of a Multi-Part Series
It is a scene that plays itself out with increasing frequency along Val Verde County’s river border with Mexico: An immigrant family – usually a man, a woman and a small child – struggles up onto the Texas bank of the Rio Grande.
Nearly as soon as the migrants’ feet touch U.S. soil, a Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office deputy or, more recently, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper, approaches the family or group or individual and directs them to a nearby dirt road.
There, the deputy or trooper waits with the immigrants until a Border Patrol van arrives.
Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Austin L. Skero on Monday explained the procedure of detention, care and processing.
“They’ll have a group of 60 Venezuelans or Cubans, so they will load them up on buses. The agents will pat them all down and make sure they don’t have any weapons or anything they can hurt themselves or us with, and they will put them on the buses, and the buses will go to the Del Rio Border Patrol Station, which is where we triage everyone,” Skero said.
The chief said the triage process involves the agents “sorting” the migrants into various groups by demographic.
“We have our single adults, that we handle one way; family units we handle one way, and unaccompanied children we handle one way. Right now, our single adult population is up over around 450% (over the previous fiscal year to date). The family units are up about 250%. Our unaccompanied children up about 250% as well. Once they get them sorted out into groups, then they know how they can deal with them depending on their nationalities and the laws that apply,” Skero said.
“For a majority of the folks we catch right now, about 75% are single adults, and so all of those folks, if they are amenable to Title 42, they will go back to Mexico, regardless of whatever country they’re from. If they’re amenable under the laws in Mexico, to Title 42, then they will go back,” Skero said.
The “Title 42” referred to by the chief is a policy enacted under the Trump administration and continued under President Joe Biden that allows the removal of immigrants to Mexico or their home countries under U.S. health law.
For those immigrants not immediately removed, Skero said, one of the first next steps is to administer a test for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.
“If they are going to be detained by ICE ERO (ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations), they’re going to be put on one bus, if they’re negative (for COVID). If they’re positive, they get on a different bus and ICE ERO will take them to a COVID-positive detention center, where they can be put into quarantine, or they’re putting them in hotels, as you’ve read in the press,” Skero said.
“If they’re negative and ICE is going to detain them, they will take them and move them to another location, where they will either put them in detention or release them on what we call an ‘alternative to detention’, ATD, which is where they put the band on them and then release them,” he said.
Among those released are the family units being assisted by the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition in the Chihuahua Neighborhood Facility on Las Vacas Street.
“When we process the family units, if they’re not going to be detained by ICE ERO, then we process them for, basically a PR (personal recognizance) bond. They’re set up for a (court) hearing at a future date, and we process them for release, and we take them to the NGOs (non-governmental organizations). Our NGOs, both here and in Eagle Pass, are fantastic. They provide humanitarian aid, and they assist them in getting a bus ticket, and they are bused somewhere close to wherever they want to be,” Skero said.
“Again, we test all of these folks for COVID-19 before we take them. If they’re negative, they go to the NGOs, and if they’re positive, ICE will take them and put them into a COVID-positive detention facility or into quarantine,” he added.
Next: Countries of origin and the border wall
