Shocking video shows migrants using a rope ladder to scale the Mexico border fence as Trump asks Congress for $4.5BILLION emergency security funding
Shocking video has emerged of migrants using a rope ladder to scale the towering barrier at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The clip taken Tuesday shows a line of seven migrants, including one woman, waiting to use the rope to precariously climb down the border wall into south El Paso, Texas.
The video emerged as the Trump administration asked Congress for a whopping additional $4.5billion in emergency spending money to beef up border security and deal with the surge of Central American migrants entering the country.
In the startling footage taken around 6.30pm Tuesday night, the migrants take turns scaling down the rope to land on U.S. soil.
Shortly after making it over, they were reportedly confronted by a border agent in an unmarked car. He was seen telling the migrants to stop, according to KVIA.
Video has emerged of a group of seven migrants scaling the U.S.-Mexico border with a rope on Tuesday at 6.30pm to land in South El Paso, Texas
The seven migrants, all males save for one woman, are seen perched on top of the border barrier of Texas and taking turns climbing down the rope
Shortly after scaling the wall, they were confronted by a border patrol agent
The video emerged just one day before the Trump administration asked Congress for a whopping additional $4.5billion in emergency spending money to beef up border security
The White House asked for the $4.5billion to deal with the 'humanitarian and security crisis' at the southern border, senior administration officials said Wednesday.
A summary of the request obtained by the AP says the White House wants $3.3 billion for humanitarian aid to increase shelter capacity for unaccompanied migrant children and the feeding and care of families.
An additional $1.1 billion would go toward operational support, including personnel expenses, detention beds, transportation and investigative work on smuggling. And the final $178 million would be used for mission support, including technology upgrades.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which manages the care of migrant children who arrive alone or who are separated from their parents by DHS under certain circumstances, says they'll exhaust their resources by June if they don't get $2.8billion from the government for shelter space.
'DHS projects it will exhaust resources well before the end of the fiscal year,' reads the formal request letter to Congress, also obtained by the AP.
'Without additional resources, the safety and well-being of law enforcement personnel and migrants are at substantial risk.'
On Tuesday a 16-year-old migrant boy from Guatemala traveling without his parents died in Texas after being held in U.S. custody.
Need the money: On Wednesday the Trump administration asked Congress for $4.5billion in emergency funding to house and accommodate migrants
Emergency: This is a temporary facility for processing migrants requesting asylum at the U.S. Border Patrol headquarters in El Paso, Texas, part of the response to the migrant surge
Border crossers: A group of migrants from Central America surrender at El Paso late last month - part of a surge of arrivals who are largely not from Mexico
The boy’s death is the third of an undocumented minor in government custody since last fall.
U.S. officials have declined to identify the boy or the shelter he was held in.
He was held for just one night before being sent to the emergency room with 'fever, chills and a headache', then was transferred to a children’s hospital in Texas. Once at that hospital his brother and Guatemalan consular officials were allowed to visit him.
'Following several days of intensive care, the minor passed away at the hospital on April 30,' U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Evelyn Stauffer said to ABC.
The other two young migrants who passed away in U.S. custody last December – seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin and eight-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo - died of bacterial infections.
The boy who passed away Tuesday is one of some 12,650 'unaccompanied' teens and children in U.S. custody.
Trump tweeted Wednesday demanding for immigration laws to be changed, claiming there will be 400 miles of his wall by the end of next year.
He also demanded 'Mexico must stop the march to the Border!' a reference to the latest caravan of migrants making its way through the country to the U.S. border.
More arrivals: Border Patrol released footage from this weekend of a large group of arrivals in Arizona
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan had said Tuesday that his department is running out of money amid the crush of migrants crossing the Southern border and that the White House was going to ask for more funds.
McAleenan told a House panel the money will be for temporary and semi-permanent facilities to process families and children and increase detention. He didn't specify a figure.
'Upgrades are badly needed,' he said. 'We will need funding even sooner.'
The facilities are outdated, designed when the flow of migrants over the border was mainly Mexican men who could be processed and returned quickly. Now, most of the people coming are Central American families that cannot be easily returned. Nearly 100,000 migrants crossed the border in March, a 12-year high.
McAleenan said President Donald Trump would also be sending legislative requests for faster deportations and to ask that families be detained for the length of their immigration case. Right now, children cannot be detained longer than about 20 days per a federal court agreement that governs the rights of children in immigration custody.
Shocking video shows migrants using a rope ladder to scale the Mexico border fence as Trump asks Congress for $4.5BILLION emergency security funding
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May 02, 2019
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