Hundreds of migrants try to force their way across US border bridge
A large group of migrants tried to force their way across the US-Mexico border on Sunday.
Scenes from the mass crossing attempt circulated on social media, showing desperate migrants carrying children and minimal belongings as they tried to cross the Paso del Norte Bridge, which spans the Rio Grande River between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
The chaos at the bridge began around 1.30pm on Sunday, when the migrants congregated on the Ciudad Juarez side and began marching north, demanding entry.
Agents from US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) deployed barbed wire, wooden barricades, and officers armed with shields to halt the crowd.
Traffic was fully stopped on the bridge by 5pm. It took authorities another two hours to reopen the bridge for vehicles.
Simultaneously, groups of migrants tried the same tactic at two other bridges, including the Bridge of the Americas and the Stanton Street Bridge. Traffic stopped for about 45 minutes at each bridge.
It is unclear if any of the migrants were injured in the crossing attempt. A public affairs officer for CBP told Metro.co.uk no federal agents were injured, and the agency was coordinating with Mexican authorities during the surge.
‘CBP is working to maintain the legal and orderly flow of entry to the U.S. while protecting the safety and security of legitimate trade and travel,’ the agency stated.
The agency said they could not speculate on what caused the surges
Reuters reported that most of the migrants involved in the incident were asylum seekers from Venezuela.
One migrant said that they were fed up with agency’s app, called CBP One, which the Biden administration introduced to streamline the asylum application process.
‘We want answers, please,’ 18-year-old Venezuelan Camila Paz said. ‘The application has done absolutely nothing for us.’
Meanwhile in California, eight people were killed when two smuggling boats capsized off the coast of San Diego.
The Coast Guard and San Diego Fire-Rescue searched for survivors from the crash through the day. One survivor estimated there were about 15 people, mostly migrants, on board the small vessels.
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