EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Tensions flared Thursday at the border wall in El Paso, as a large group of presumptive asylum-seekers pushed its way past Texas Army National Guard troops near a spot known as Gate 36.
Videos obtained by a national news outlet appear to show the migrants rush the wall and soldiers physically trying to prevent their access. A separate video from a KTSM/Border Report camera crew shows two soldiers subduing a man on the ground as two women, one dressed in gray sweats, the other in black, plead with the soldiers to stop.
The confrontation comes in the wake of several shouting matches – documented by Mexican news media – between Texas soldiers and migrants who are coming across the Rio Grande and allegedly using pliers to cut the state’s controversial barbwire barrier in front of the border wall.
Border Report reached out to state authorities for comment and is awaiting a response.
U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Orlando Marrero-Rubio said a group of about 500 migrants approached the border wall on Thursday to surrender.
“What we have witnessed for several months now is people are using the Border Safety Initiative marker (Gate 36) as a port of entry. The gate is not a port of entry. We need to educate the community this is not a designated port to make a legal asylum claim. Anybody that comes into our country between ports of entry is doing it in an illegal way,” Marrero-Rubio said.
He said illegal crossers face consequences under Title 8 federal authority that include removal and a five-year ban on future immigration benefits. He says the migrants are still taking that route spurred by smugglers.
“They are just following instructions from social media from transnational criminal organizations giving them false hope and false information of a safe passage into the United States. They are getting exploited by the TCOs out of their money with the promise of safe passage,” he said.
Border Report reached out to the Texas Military Department for comment and is awaiting a response.