Groups of migrant families are entering the country in between ports of entry in the Rio Grande Valley reminiscent of pre-pandemic numbers.
U.S. Border Patrol reported in a Friday news release the detention of 166 migrants, mainly families and children traveling alone in south Mission late Thursday night. During the screening, a second group of 87 migrants, also composed of families and children, turned themselves in to agents.
Migrants were sent to a local border patrol station.
Up until Thursday, agents were encountering groups no larger than 50 people, due to rapid expulsions under the CDC COVID-19 travel restriction and the enrollment into Trump-era programs like the Migrant Protection Protocols, safe third-country agreements with Central American countries, Prompt Asylum Claim Review, or PACR, and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process, or HARP — all of which did not result in the release of migrants into the United States.
Those programs superseded Border Patrol’s authorization to release asylum seekers into the country while they wait for their immigration court hearings.
Recently, due to executive orders from the Biden administration that ended those programs, families are once again paroled into the country with a notice to appear in immigration court at a date to be determined later.
Border Patrol began releasing families in McAllen and Brownsville on Wednesday, Jan. 27.
Many of those releases were compelled by COVID-19 protocols, changes in Mexican law and limited U.S. holding capacities.
Editor’s note: A previous version incorrectly stated the migrants turned themselves over to agents through ports of entry, instead of between them.
