GOP governors back at Texas border to keep pressure on Biden over migrant crossings

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (AP) — Kyle Willis woke up in Mexico on Sunday, weighing different options for entry into the U.S. after being turned away at the most fortified stretch of Texas' border last week.

The 23-year-old Jamaican, who said he left his country after facing attacks and discrimination due to his sexuality, had followed the path of a historic number of migrants over the past two years and tried crossing the Rio Grande at the border city of Eagle Pass. But he waded back across the river after spending hours, in soaking clothes, failing to persuade Texas National Guard soldiers behind a razor wire fence to let him through.

“It’s not just something they’re saying to deter persons from coming in. It’s actually real,” said Willis, who for now is staying at a shelter in Piedras Negras.

His experience would be considered a victory for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who is expected to return to Eagle Pass on Sunday with more than a dozen other GOP governors who have cheered on his extraordinary showdown with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement. But a decline in crossings is part of a complex mix of developments in play across the U.S. border, including heightened Mexican enforcement.

Meanwhile, migrants are moving further down the river and crossing elsewhere.

The record number of border crossings is a political liability for President Joe Biden and an issue that Republicans are eager to put front and center to voters in an election year. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week committed to send more National Guard troops to Texas and other governors are also weighing new deployments.

Eagle Pass is where Texas has been locked in a power struggle with the Biden administration for the past month after the state began denying access to U.S. Border Patrol agents at the riverfront Shelby Park.

Crossings in recent weeks are down overall along the entire U.S. border, including areas without such a heavy security presence.

Tucson, Arizona, which has been the busiest of nine Border Patrol sectors on the Mexican border, tallied 13,800 arrests in the weeklong period that ended Friday. That is down 29% from a peak of 19,400 in week ended Dec. 22, according to John Modlin, the sector chief.

Just a day after President Biden expressed “his appreciation for Mexico’s operational support and for taking concrete steps to deter irregular migration” in a call with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican immigration agency said Sunday that in the last week, they had rescued 71 immigrants – 22 of them minors— in two groups stranded in sand bars of the Rio Grande, between Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras. They were from Mexico, Central America, Ecuador and Peru.

A Honduran woman and her one-year-old baby were also rescued from the water and the emergency team also found 3 corpses, apparently migrants that died during their attempts to cross to the U.S.

Biden, now sounding increasingly like former President Donald Trump, is pressing Congress for asylum restrictions that would have been unthinkable when he took office. Immigration remains a major worry for voters in the 2024 election: An AP-NORC poll earlier this month found that voters voicing concerns about immigration climbed to 35% from 27% last year.

The arrival of GOP governors to Eagle Pass rounds out a weekend that has kept the small border city of roughly 30,000 residents in an unwitting spotlight. Hundreds of rallygoers protesting Biden's immigration policies held a “Take Back Our Border” rally on the outskirts of the city on Saturday where vendors sold Donald Trump-inspired MAGA hats and Trump flags.

The number of crossings in Eagle Pass has recently fallen to a few hundred a day. Mexico has bolstered immigration efforts that include adding more checkpoints and sending people from the northern border to southern Mexico. The country has also deported some Venezuelan migrants back home.

Melissa Ruiz, 30, arrived at the Piedras Negras shelter, across the river from Eagle Pass, along with her four children. The Honduran mother said gang members back home had tried to recruit her 15-year-old son, her oldest, which led her to reluctantly flee.

Ruiz said she had little awareness of the tightening security on the Texas side, having heard of many people crossing the river into the U.S. since she arrived at the shelter. The main deterrence for her, she said, is cold temperatures and the river’s flow that increased after recent rainfall. Drownings in the river are tragically common.

“What they say that one suffers so much on this road, it’s true," Ruiz said.

___ Associated Press reporters Maria Verza in Mexico City anf Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.