Public Safety Officials Interdict Human Smuggling Attempt at Texas Airport

Illegal immigrants from Venezuela, who boarded a bus in Texas, wait to be transported to a local church by volunteers after being dropped off outside the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris, at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15, 2022. Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) have busted a human smuggling operation that was underway at an airport located in McAllen, a border city.

“WESLACO–A @TxDPS Special Agent & Pilot stopped a human smuggling attempt at McCreery Aviation Co. in McAllen, TX. 19 illegal immigrants (12m/7f) from Central America were being smuggled by plane to Houston,” Texas DPS said in a Sept. 24 tweet.

Officials received a tip about three vehicles dropping off potential illegal immigrants at the local airport. The special agent and the pilot who stopped the smuggling were working under Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security mission.

The duo ordered air traffic controllers to ground a Raytheon aircraft. While checking the plane, the special agent discovered the illegal immigrants. The failed smuggling attempt is being investigated by the Texas DPS Criminal Investigations Division as well as other federal agencies.

DPS special agents had earlier intercepted an attempt to transport 50 illegal immigrants in an 18-wheeler. Two men were arrested on charges of smuggling, the agency said in a Sept. 22 tweet.

Around two weeks ago, Border Patrol agents at the Rio Grande Valley Sector made 30 arrests involving smugglers who attempted to use airplanes to transport illegal immigrants.

On Sept. 13, the Department of Justice announced it had disrupted a “prolific human smuggling operation” in Texas.

The criminal organization carrying out the activities used drivers to pick up illegal immigrants near the U.S.-Mexico border to transport them to the interior of the United States. Drivers even used suitcases to hide the illegal immigrants.

Migrant Influx, Transporting Aliens Out of State

Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, after which he loosened and reversed several Trump-era policies restricting illegal immigration, there has been a massive influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows border agents apprehended 186,424 illegal migrants in August, up from almost 48,000 in August 2020 and 50,684 arrests made in August 2019.

Meanwhile, Texas has been busing illegal immigrants to Democrat-run “sanctuary cities” such as Washington, D.C., New York, and even Martha’s Vinyard, as a way of raising public awareness of the Biden administration’s lax border policies.

While Texas used to spend around $400 million a year on border security, the costs have now shot up to around $4 billion, according to the state’s Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

“They’ve been dumping people in America for a long time, a long time,” Patrick told Fox News in an interview that aired on Sept. 17.

“And now Texas is saying, we’re fighting back. We’re going to send them to your neighborhood and we’re going to keep those buses coming until finally this administration wakes up.”