Apocalyptic El Paso: Shocking photos show 1,000 migrants sleeping on border city's streets which now resemble 'a third-world country' with no sanitation
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- Nearly 1,000 migrants have been released in El Paso in the past week, as the border crisis continues
- Many have been left sleeping on the street without access to toilets or showers, causing vile conditions
- Surge of migrants, mostly from Venezuela, has overwhelmed Border Patrol across Texas
- With facilities overwhelmed, many are being dropped off near bus stations and left to fend for themselves
- 'It's almost apocalyptic,' says US Rep. Tony Gonzales, with El Paso also likened to a third world country
A humanitarian crisis is deepening in the Texas border town of El Paso, where nearly 1,000 migrants have been released to sleep on the streets amid a surge of illegal crossings that is overwhelming Border Patrol facilities.
Following a large influx of migrants, primarily from Venezuela, Border Patrol facilities and shelters in the west Texas town have been overwhelmed in recent days, leading to a flood of so-called 'street releases'.
Congressman Tony Gonzalez, a GOP US Representative, told the New York Post: 'We’ve never seen anything like this.
'It’s a scene that you would see in a third-world country, not in the streets of El Paso.'
It has led to scenes of misery, with hundreds of migrants sleeping on the streets without access to toilets or showers, and residents say that the 'smell of human waste is overwhelming in the area,' according to KVIA-TV.
'There's nothing safe about having people roaming the streets, it's almost apocalyptic,' Gonzales, who represents part of El Paso, told the ABC affiliate.
'I'd argue that we're very compassionate people, people who want to give the shirt off their back, but when there's no end in sight, it's just not fair,' said Gonzales.
The situation in El Paso comes days after the Biden administration officially extended special protections for Venezuelans, known as Temporary Protected Status, that shield some of them from deportation.
News of the grim situation in El Paso comes a day after migrants in Eagle Pass, 450 miles east along the border, were reported to have killed a guard dog and begun eating animals in desperation.
Just shy of 200,000 illegal immigrants were intercepted crossing the southern border in July, according to the most recent CBP figures available.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has begun bussing thousands of migrants to so-called sanctuary cities including New York, Washington DC and Chicago, where leaders there have moaned about struggling to cope with them.
But El Paso - the sixth largest city in Texas - is one of a number of border areas facing an exponentially worse crisis. It has a population which is 81 percent Hispanic and relies heavily on the petroleum industry for local jobs - but is also home to a large medical center and university. The average house there costs $203,000.
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US Customs and Border Protection says that in the El Paso sector, encounters with people crossing the border illegally have averaged about 1,300 per day since the start of September, up from the recent May high of 1,000.
Since last Wednesday, 932 migrants have been released in what are commonly known as 'street releases' and Border Patrol calls 'provisional releases,' according to NBC News.
In these cases, migrants are being released near bus stations in the hopes that they can make their own way to other parts of the United States.
'Generally, after processing, migrants who are not detained for the duration of their removal proceeding are provisionally released in coordination with NGOs [non-governmental organizations],' a Border Patrol spokeswoman told NBC.
'If NGOs are over capacity, U.S. Border Patrol coordinates with local government and cities to identify locations where migrants can conveniently access transportation services or accommodations,' the spokeswoman added.
The Border Patrol says that its agents do biometric screenings on migrants prior to 'street releases' and continue to hold those who may pose a threat to public safety.
It's not entirely clear what has prompted the surge of Venezuelan migrants at the El Paso crossing specifically, but Venezuela has for years been undergoing an economic crisis and food shortages under its socialist regime.
On September 8, the Biden administration released official notice of an 18-month extension for its Temporary Protected Status designation for Venezuelans, protecting them from deportation in many cases.
However, the protections are only supposed to apply to Venezuelan nationals who have been present in the US since March 8, 2021, and so would not include more recent arrivals.
El Paso's mayor declared a state of emergency due to the border situation in May, and the emergency order was extended again on Monday.
El Paso's Deputy City Manager, Mario D'Agostino, says his city has contacted the government directly to combat similar issues.
'We've been in communication with the White House directly,' he said. 'We've been talking about some of the needs we're seeing in our community and we need to continue helping in this effort.'
The city, also a border city opposite Ciudad Juarez, recently experienced a surge of migrants sleeping on the streets downtown in tents.
D'Agostino added the city wants to be in contact with customs and border patrol so that it could be better prepared for another influx of migrants.
El Paso County Commissioners approved a funding source on September 12 to set up the city's own processing center - which could be used to mitigate any incoming issues.
Through this new center, migrants released from customs and border patrol would be sent to the center rather than straight to the city's streets.
The situation in El Paso comes amid an ongoing surge in illegal border crossings, which are at historic levels so far this year.
In Eagle Pass, Texas, about 450 miles east of El Paso, residents said this week that migrants have been killing ranch animals to eat them, stealing things from shops, and knocking on windows at night, according to Fox News.
President Joe Biden appointed Vice President Kamala Harris to tackle the 'root causes' of immigration, but so far border agents have made nearly 2 million border apprehensions, an all-time record, this fiscal year, which ends in October.
That number surpassed the already-historic 1.7 million encounters in fiscal year 2021.
Despite the surge, Harris insisted the border was secure during a Meet the Press interview on Sunday.
'The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular, over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed,' she said, deferring the blame to the Trump administration.
'We have a secure border in that that is a priority for any nation including ours in our administration,' Harris added.
'But there are still a lot of problems that we are trying to fix,' she said, calling for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
In July there were nearly 200,000 encounters, a decline for the second consecutive month after four months of increases climaxing in May with a record-breaking 241,116 encounters.
August figures should be released soon.
With one month still left to go in the fiscal year, almost 750 border crossers have died making the dangerous journey northward to the U.S.
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