A resident of a Texas community located about 80 miles from the Mexican border says cartel-connected human smugglers threaten people who live around their paths. The “coyotes” utilize this area to force migrants on dangerous marches around the Falfurrias Border Patrol Checkpoint. Hundreds died in this area over the past several years, county officials say.
“Whoever tells you there is no danger out here and we don’t need the wall, they have no idea what they’re talking about,” a woman identified only as “Solia” told a KVEO reporter. “They don’t care as long as the businesses keep thriving in McAllen or Brownsville.”
The Encino resident says she can no longer go out of her home without a gun because of the treats from human smugglers. “Solia” says the border wall is “needed to protect U.S. citizens.”
For more than a decade, Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez and local Border Patrol agents assigned to the Falfurrias Station have dealt with smugglers marching their “human cargo” through the dangerous ranchlands surrounding the checkpoint.
“U.S. Border Patrol agents operate an immigration checkpoint in the middle of our county,” Sheriff Martinez told Breitbart News in a January interview. “You can’t drive from the county’s south side to the north side without going through this checkpoint. Consequently, human smugglers who have no regard for the health or safety of these migrants march them through very dangerous ranchlands in order to bypass the checkpoint.”
“Solia” told the KVEO reporter the problem is getting worse in recent months as the massive influx of Central American migrants overwhelmed Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol officials.
“Huge groups and we’re not talking 10 or 15, we’re talking about 40, 70 and the last few months it’s getting worse,” the woman stated. “They really need to go after the coyotes. We have seen so many abandoned families, women with children just left out there. These people are not educated, they don’t know east or west they don’t know where the sun rises and sets, you ask them ‘Have you ever seen a map of Texas?’ They don’t even know how big Texas is.”
She said she and her neighbors live in fear every day from the criminal organizations operating in the area.
“12 young men dressed in black. My husband automatically stopped and they just put a finger to their lips and it’s like… You better not say anything, they know what we drive, they know where we live,” she explained. “There was a young man, he [her husband] kept telling him to stop right at the gate, he kept coming. My husband cocked the gun and right on his left-hand side, 12-15 more people pop out, they were trying to get in towards the house.”
Breitbart News heard directly from migrants being smuggled through this area in past visits to Brooks County. The migrants are told that Houston is just a few miles up the road and they need to walk through these ranches to get around the checkpoint.
“Solia” told KVEO she heard similar remarks from the migrants. She told the reporter that hundreds of migrants walk down her street after being dropped off by human smugglers and told that “Houston is just up the street.”
She concluded the interview saying that everyone in her neighborhood is afraid to call Border Patrol because of the threats they receive from the smugglers.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
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