Rep. Tony Gonzales Issues Warning, Says Del Rio Migrant Situation ‘An Absolute Powder Keg’
Michael Cantrell
|
According to Rep. Tony Gonzales, a first-time GOP congressman, the situation at an impromptu migrant camp located in Del Rio is probably going to get a whole lot worse over the course of the coming days, weeks, which is not the kind of news the folks down there want to hear right now.
Gonzales went on to predict on Tuesday, during a phone conversation with the Washington Examiner, that based on the intelligence he has been receiving from both federal and state law enforcement, community leaders, residents, and the U.S. and Mexican governments, the camp located at the international bridge might implode sometime soon.
“Del Rio is going to get bad. It’s going to get real bad in Del Rio. And the reason being is there’s still this impression that ‘come to Del Rio and you’ll be released,’” Gonzales said during his conversation with the outlet.
“Once you start expelling these migrants, once they start realizing that they’re being expelled there, they’re going to be unruly. There’s no doubt,” Gonzales went on to say. “If you’re Haitian, you’ve been living in Chile for let’s say five years [and] … you were told, ‘Hey, come to the United States, it’s wide open.’ You pay a cartel $3,000, you make this trek, you come here, you wait under a bridge for three days, four days, whatever it is in the blistering hot sun.”
“Then all of a sudden you’re being told, ‘Hey, we’re going to fly you back to Haiti,’” the congressman stated, making a paraphrase of what he heard from federal law enforcement. “There’s a lot at stake, and a lot of people aren’t going to accept that. Right? So, it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
Gonzales said he told Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas his agency should remove everyone in the camp as quickly as possible — far faster than the several thousand removed thus far —because it would avoid thousands being left behind only to learn they may be deported.
Tensions are building, and migrants are already refusing to be deported, as evidenced by a recent hijacking of a federally contracted bus that was transporting Haitian migrants when some people on board overtook the vehicle and escaped. Some fled the bus and were arrested in the vicinity hours later.
“It’s just an absolute powder keg just waiting to happen,” Gonzales then said. “And from the migrants’ standpoint, if you’re starting to see people be sent back to their country of origin … As that word of mouth spreads, one way or another, that’s either going to attract more people to come down, or it’s going to attract even more of a chaotic situation.”
Gonzales then stated that he’s concerned about how federal agents and state law enforcement would respond to violence that might be aimed at them.
Democratic lawmakers, along with their pets in the mainstream media, have accused some Border Patrol agents on horseback of whipping some of the migrants, however, this allegation is being denied by the agency. The DHS has opened an investigation into the situation.
Share: