Henry Cuellar who represents the Texas border along with Rio Grande says that over “the last 7 days in the valley they have stopped 10,000 individuals and 2,500 individuals in the last two days and many are being released”.
Cuellar says the communities in the Rio Grande are unprepared to handle the growing surge in illegal immigration especially during a pandemic.
He is also warning federal officials about the risk of exposing border communities to the coronavirus when transporting and releasing migrants in different cities.
“...remember what happened under the problem we had last time? What did they do? {they said} ‘oh, we have too many people in the south, so let us send them to Laredo.’ They process them in and they send them by bus stations, and then release them in Laredo. My thing is, if the numbers keep going you they will release them in Laredo like they did in the past. If they do not go to an NGO, then they go straight to the bus station and no one is checking them, or testing them for COVID-19, Border Patrol does not do that.”