Border Patrol agents in El Paso, Texas have picked up five migrants from Turkey attempting to enter the U.S. illegally — as officials say they are seeing foreign nationals from dozens of countries arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.
El Paso Chief Border Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez announced that agents in Ysleta had intercepted the five Turkish nationals entering the U.S. illegally. She added that agents in the sector have so far arrested migrants from over 45 nationalities. “Border Security is National Security!” she tweeted, along with a graphic that said “Turkish Incursion.”
Agents have been dealing with a constant, large flow of migrants coming to the border, primarily from Mexico and Northern Triangle countries. But agents have also encountered migrants from all across the globe attempting to gain access to the United States.
In Fiscal Year 2021, there were 1,409 encounters with migrants coming from Turkey, up from 109 in FY 2020. So far in FY 2022, there have been 957 encounters since October. Meanwhile, there were 2,588 Indian nationals encountered in FY2021, up from 1,120 in FY 2020. There were 450 encounters with Chinese nationals in FY 2021, down from the 1,738 in FY 2020.
There were an additional 20,707 migrants in FY2021 listed as coming from “other” countries outside those listed on the CBP statistics – up from 7,047 in FY2020. CBP figures released earlier this month show agents reported 173,620 encounters at the southren border in November, a staggering increase of 140 percent from the same time last year.
