PORT ANGELES – A locally-stationed border patrol agent, just back from assignment, at the southern border says the situation there is overwhelming.
Matthew Rainwater says there are too little resources to keep up with a massive influx of people trying to enter the country through the southern border, particularly in Texas.
In a presentation to the Port Angeles Business Association, Rainwater quoted stats from his agency that showed there have been 594,000 apprehensions at the southern border between mid-October of last year and mid-May this year. Rainwater says that’s roughly the entire population of Wyoming at the border in six months.
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“The simple fact of matter is we’re getting overwhelmed on the southwestern border. It’s a concerted effort by the cartels and other players humans human traffickers that are helping to get these people to come across.”
Rainwater says 80 percent of those apprehended are from countries other than Mexico.
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“Many nights where there were no agents to work as it’s called the line, to work the border because they’re all busy either processing the apprehensions or aliens were sick and had to go to the hospital. We have to send agents with them to watch them. All these things have to occur with a finite number of resources and the cartels know this.”
Rainwater says the crush of immigrants is also bringing diseases. He says there are strains of diseases local authorities can’t identify and that are also depleting the Border Patrol staff.
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“They’re bringing viruses that we haven’t been exposed to, and border patrol agents are getting exposed to it and getting incredibly sick. I know people that spent weeks on sick leave because they came in a contact or something and I just made them sick.”
Rainwater says agents like him at the northern border, are being rotated multiple times to help in the south and that has an effect here.
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“We’re having to cycle through rather quickly. I spent two months down there. We have one agent that’s gone three times in the last five months. So it’s crazy. Okay, it’s really hard to have a life and you want to do that so often, but that’s our job.”
Rainwater just returned from a rotation in May and says he’ll most likely be sent back to the southern border in October.