Border Report Live: Illegal immigration drives up border violence

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — The head of the Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector recently described the crime of assaulting a federal agent as “an affront to our principles of justice and the safety of our nation.”

In an Aug. 9 news release, border officials here said they were seeing a “significant rise in attacks” from an influx of smugglers and migrants crossing the border illegally.

The latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that along the southern border, 324 Border Patrol agents were assaulted through August of Fiscal Year 2024, which ended on Sept. 30.

The number of overall assaults is down from 422 at the same time last year and 491 in 2022. However, some sectors have seen assaults go up.

The El Paso Sector, for example, has seen assaults on border agents nearly double in two years, going from 54 and 56 in 2022 and 2023, respectively, to 111 in 2023.

During the first 11 months of Fiscal 2024, the El Paso Sector recorded 91 agent assaults, which represents about a third of all agent assaults along the U.S.-Mexico border and the most among the nine sectors.

Although assault data for September is pending, Border Report has documented several attacks that happened last month, including one agent bitten in the face and another who suffered a serious eye injury when a migrant allegedly threw dirt in their face.

Earlier this year, an agent was shot twice in the torso while conducting an immigration stop within the Lordsburg, New Mexico, area of the El Paso Sector. The agent survived the shooting due to his ballistic vest, and the attacker was sentenced to 19 years in federal prison for attempting to murder a U.S. Border Patrol agent, officials said.

The Border Patrol says violent confrontations occur when migrants and smugglers attempt to evade law enforcement, adding that they’ll use their hands, fists, feet, teeth, firearms, knives, vehicles, and rocks to inflict harm on federal officers on duty.

“We will not tolerate any harm to the wellbeing of those dedicated to protecting others,” El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Anthony “Scott” Good said. “Our law enforcement partners stand with us in bringing those responsible to justice.”

In this week’s episode of Border Report Live, host Chip Brewster and Border Report correspondents Salvador Rivera and Julian Resendiz discuss assaults on border officials as well as some of the dangers migrants themselves face on both sides of the border.

South of the border, the victims of crime or cartel violence often include those migrants who are trying to make their way to the U.S. Many of them do not intend on seeking asylum and instead turn to smugglers to get them over the border wall or across the Rio Grande into more desolate areas.

On Wednesday, two Venezuelan migrants were shot in the head in Juarez, across the border from El Paso. One of the men died, while the other was hospitalized in critical condition.

On the other hand, migrants have also fallen prey to authorities, alleging that they were robbed, extorted, and, in some cases, sexually assaulted by local police or members of the Mexican National Guard.

Monthly migrant encounters at the border have dropped to some of the lowest of the Biden administration in recent months, but they appear to have bottomed out and are trending upward again.

According to CBP data, border agents had 58,038 encounters between ports of entry in August, up from 56,399 in July.

At the same time, more migrants are showing up at ports of entry, having requested an asylum interview using the CBP One app, one of the asylum restrictions ordered by President Joe Biden in June.

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