Three armed men believed to be Mexican cartel members crossed into Texas on Saturday, according to reports.
Shocking images obtained by Fox News show three suspected cartel gunmen making their way through South Texas, near Fronton. One of them appeared to be wearing full body armor.
Agents from the Border Patrol, including the agency’s BORTAC tactical team, were dispatched to the area but found nothing. It is the same area where law enforcement detained five accused Northeast Cartel members back in June.
The latest incident comes just days after drone operators of the Texas Department of Public Safety spotted an armed smuggler in Eagle Pass carrying a long gun and leading a group of illegal immigrants across the Rio Grande River. Authorities said that the man was successful in his endeavors and managed to make it back to Mexico.
The U.S. has been seeing massive migrant numbers since President Joe Biden announced last year that he would be lifting “Title 42,” a controversial border policy implemented by former President Donald Trump back in March 2020 that allowed the border agency to turn migrants away.
Since then, nearly 2.4 million migrants were detained at the border for the fiscal year ending in September, surpassing the already-historic number of 1.7 million migrant detainees in 2021. The numbers are likely to increase now that “Title 42” has been lifted.
Border officials have also reported a rising number of dead bodies found near the border, many of whom are believed to be the victims of the cartel. According to Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez, deputies recovered the bodies or remains of at least 26 migrants between January 1 and July 1. Most of the discoveries involved the collection of skeletal remains scattered by animals and scavenger birds.
“Most of the time, that is all that is left,” Martinez said. “It doesn’t take long with the animals and the heat for a human body to decay.”
Border Patrol agents have recovered the bodies or remains of at least 880 migrants who died while or shortly after crossing the Mexican border into the U.S. during FY2022.
