Border Patrol agents in San Diego are releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants onto city streets as it struggles to deal with a surge of migrants into the area – just after similar releases had started in Arizona.
Video out of San Diego shows hundreds of migrants being released from buses, with migrants from China and Pakistan onto the streets. A conversation in the video shows a migrant speaking to a Border Patrol agent, who tells him he can do whatever he wants now.
‘You’re free to go on and do wherever you want. You’re free,’ the agent says.
‘It’s no problem if I go to Chicago?’ the migrant asks.
‘You can do whatever you want,’ the agent says.
This is after releases have been taking place in Arizona in the Tucson Sector for days as agents have been facing 2,000 encounters a day and images have emerged of packed shelters in places like Ajo.
Meanwhile, Texas is continuing to use razor wire to block migrants trying to enter illegally, as it fends off a challenge from the Biden administration seeking to stop it from building a buoy barrier in the Rio Grande.
The border as a whole has seen multiple days this week of over 7,000 illegal crossings, and when combined with migrants who have come to the ports of entry, that number rises to over 9,000.
Sources told Fox News this week that early indications show migrant encounters for August on track to exceed 230,000, making it the sixth month this fiscal year over 200,000. Fox has reported on how Border Patrol leadership is setting ‘bookout’ targets to more quickly process migrants either into the interior or into deportation or removal.
It marks the latest difficult month for overwhelmed agents at the border, who are now in the third year of a migrant crisis which has affected not only border communities but also those deeper within the U.S.
Both New York City and Chicago have been sounding the alarm about their troubles with coping with the number of migrants that have come their way — either by themselves or with the assistance of Texas, which has run a bussing program to ‘sanctuary’ cities.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently warned that the crisis threatens to ‘destroy’ the city, as it copes with over 110,000 migrant arrivals since last year.
Republicans in Congress are pushing for a border security to be passed in the Senate, having already passed the House. But that has shown little chance of receiving Democratic support, while a Democratic reform bill has been rejected by Republicans for the inclusion of an amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
He can be reached at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter.