Crisis Continuing in Del Rio

For Now

As we predicted yesterday morning, there have been some modifications to the plans for dealing with and potentially deporting the roughly 15,000 mostly Haitians beneath the Port of Entry in Del Rio, TX.

Don’t worry— no one’s going to get sore patting themselves on the back over this one. It was and is inevitable in such a fluid situation. A blind man could have seen it coming.

For now, it appears the broad strokes of Authorities’ plans are visible, aligning with a press release issued by the Department of Homeland Security, outlining what’s going to be happening next.

Step 1, stop any more people from coming across and joining the crowd already present.

I pulled these photos from off of Facebook. Judging by the watermarks that someone partially cropped, they were taken by DPS Personnel flying overhead yesterday. They show some of the approximately 200 troopers vehicles that had been surged to the port area by mid-afternoon and early evening.

You can also see where they are using all that plastic and steel to sort of blockade the low water crossing that the asylum seekers have been using to walk back and forth to the bridge and Acuña.

It was at around this time that officials say they began to start seeing the arrival of aliens from Senegal and other African nations.

Step 2 according to Homeland Security, they’ve begun moving people to other facilities around the state to begin processing people. Yours truly, and many of the other observers at “reporter’s row” near the bridge witnessed this— a small stream of buses and vans moving people out. For all that traffic, however, we are told only about 2,000 were bused out yesterday. This emphasizes the priority of stopping more people from arriving. They’ll never get ahead of the problem at this pace if they don’t stop new groups from showing up.

Step 3, they plan on getting more “resources” to the area in the next 72 hours, allowing them to move more people out and into processing. They’re using the word resources as a catchall for manpower, vehicles, and probably also even toilet paper and other supplies. As we’ve been reporting— the population of Del Rio has more than doubled during this crisis. In addition to the roughly 15,000 illegals down at the bridge, there are all of the State Troopers, CBP personnel flooding the zone, Journalists, and unknown amounts of additional illegal aliens and criminal traffickers using this moment of crisis to come across unopposed in an area that has seen the necessary shutting down of checkpoints and all other border enforcement apparatus.

Store shelves in Del Rio? Bare. There are pictures up on Facebook. I should have grabbed them immediately, but you know how it is— the algorithm giveth and taketh away. The next time I tried looking, couldn’t find them. It doesn’t help I’m a Facebook rookie. The photos are out there— odds are, you may’ve already seen them.

I did find this one instead:

The Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition

This photo is partly why the shelves are bare. The Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition is just one of the area organizations that has been trying to help and feed illegal aliens and asylum seekers passing through the area. And they’ve all been hard at work trying to feed everyone under that bridge.

Their intentions are good. Even noble. What could possibly be wrong with trying to help our fellow human beings? On the face of it, absolutely nothing. The people under that bridge must be fed. That is a fact. We have a human duty to do so.

However, the efforts of these organizations is also ultimately to the bad, if one believes that their effectiveness encourages more attempts to cross the border and find shelter in the United States. What is to be done? We’ve encountered persistent rumors that food from a popular area barbecue restaurant chain was purchased at great expense and sent to the crowd. We’re told it was too much— it was food they were unused to, causing gastric distress and other trouble, and much of it had to be dumped.

Step 4, “…the Administration is working with source and transit countries in the region to accept individuals who previously resided in those countries.”

This may seem a strange sentence, but it is explainable. What many aren’t aware of, is that many of those under the bridge did not just show up fresh off the boat from Haiti. In many cases they left Haiti years ago, arriving in Venezuela or wherever else, and built lives there. Renting homes, holding down jobs, the whole nine yards. As we reported yesterday, word got out among the Haitian diaspora that now was the time to come to the US and that Del Rio was the place to do it at, and they started coming. In effect, they already had asylum where they were. But now they wanted to get some of that good asylum here in the U.S. So, the government will be trying to get them back to those other countries, where appropriate.

Step 5, Get some more portable toilets and other facilities down to the bridge.

Step 6, “…the White House has directed appropriate U.S. agencies to work with the Haitian and other regional governments to provide assistance and support to returnees.”

That means we’re going to pay a bunch of money to these countries and bribe them to take their own citizens back.

We’re told the illegals will be flown back to their countries of origin. Except for those who aren’t. There remain nonstop rumors and anecdotal evidence that at least some will be settled elsewhere. The locations most frequently mentioned to us have been Nashville, Tennessee and Miami, Florida. Who knows for sure. As we’ve been saying, up till now, all plans and statements have been schizophrenically fluid.

But not Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens. He is as refreshingly potty-mouthed as he was the day before in another end-of-day video. If you haven’t seen it, give it a watch. Well worth it. If I had the time, and just wanted a giggle, I would begin keeping a counter, tallying his use of certain words you’re not supposed to say on television. But this is serious business, and he has a lot to say about the kind of help he’s been getting from his counterparts across the border, and how he needs the help of every day citizens.

While down at the bridge yesterday, we encountered a contract worker from off of Laughlin Air Force Base. He told us his name. Gave us permission to use it. Gonna call him John Smith, not his real name, anyway, because of what he had to tell us and others down on “Reporter’s Row.”

Reporter’s Row, Del Rio Port of Entry

Mr. Smith, not his real name, was visiting the base Commissary— the grocery store serving Airmen and others at Laughlin AFB— when he says he was surrounded by Military Police, demanding to see his cellphone and his recent photos, telling him he’d better not have been taking pictures and video of people gathering supplies, presumably for the illegals that have been flying out of Laughlin.

As it happens, his rights were probably not violated. This sort of thing would appear to be within the remit and policies for contractors who work on base. If it’s true, however, it’s not a good look for the U.S. Military.

Reporter’s Row, visible in the photo above, is an informal name frequently bestowed upon the locations reporters tend to congregate adjacent to major news stories like this one. They are typically festooned with marked and unmarked SUVs, full of camera equipment. In that image you can see a Val Verde County Hospital ambulance. Many illegals under the bridge are suffering from a variety of ailments. Yesterday at least one pregnant woman was brought out— possibly by that very ambulance. She tested positive for Covid-19, we are told. There are also persistent rumors of at least one case of leprosy. Scary stuff if true. But, it’s also true that leprosy is actually quite difficult to catch. It seems so prevalent and widespread in Biblical tales, experts say, because in antiquity, the word was used as a catchall for all kinds of skin diseases and ailments that were frequently unrelated, and frequently quite infectious without modern hygiene. Tuberculosis is also a major concern, and is why most visitors under the bridge absolutely must wear some kind of PPE, including masks.

And finally, one last home truth: It’s not over. Already the word is out, and illegal aliens are moving north and south of that little crossing where DPS has their wall of cruisers, and walking around the port of entry.

Only now, there are next to no Border Patrol agents combing the ranches and manning the checkpoints to greet them. That may change as more “greenshirts” and “blueshirts” as County Judge Owens referred to them, arrive in the area, but for now, one can only conclude that the Texas Border is collapsing. Hopefully, it will be back up soon, but one worries what will happen when the some of the aliens sent back across turn around and take their best shot at crossing again.

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A savvy and saintly subscriber had the photos off of Facebook of bare shelves in Del Rio and has kindly furnished them. I am including them below. Thank you very much. Glad to report I haven’t been taking crazy pills imagining them. What is especially notable, is that these photos are actually from the 17th, when there were fewer people crowded under the bridge. Most grocery stores around the country take about 3-4 days between shipments, so right now the pantry is even more empty. It will refill soon, but will probably empty again. The shipment from the distribution center after that will probably be larger, to adjust for the greater demands.

Bare Shelves in the Local Wal-Mart, Images From: Ms. Gloria Best Glenn. Thanks to Ms. Smith for the assistance in finding them.