Rural Texas county with just 700 residents saw 7,400 illegal migrants arrested in the last year

The sheriff of a rural Texas county is appealing for help after his county of 724 people detained 7,400 migrants in the last year.

Thaddeus Cleveland, who spent 26 years as a Border Patrol agent before being elected sheriff of Terrell County in May 2022, wrote to Governor Greg Abbott last week.

Cleveland said there had been a 540 percent increase in the number of migrants captured since 2020, and said his county – 300 miles east of El Paso, just north of Big Bend National Park – was struggling to cope, with 7,400 arrivals last year.

‘As sheriff of Terrell County, I live with the daily impacts President Biden and his administration have created with their dereliction of duties to secure the Southwestern border,’ he wrote on February 3.

Thaddeus Cleveland, sheriff of Terrell County in Texas, said migrant apprehensions are up 540 percent in his state

Terrell County, 300 miles east of El Paso and north of Big Bend National Park, is harsh and inhospitable terrain, yet migrants are still making the desperate and dangerous journey

Cleveland said he believed records for apprehension were on course to be broken, and asked Abbott for more help – emphasizing that Abbott had been supportive so far.

‘When we last spoke, I requested assistance from you,’ he continued. ‘You delivered and gave me exactly what I asked for.’

He requested additional rangers, members of the Texas Department of Public Safety teams, and special response teams. 

Cleveland, 49, patrols the county with two deputies, he told The New York Post. 

Across the county there are 50 border patrol officers, backed up by federal agents who work two-week rotations in Sanderson. 

In addition, the county has 11 Texas Department of Public Safety state troopers. 

‘The terrain here is the most unforgiving among the 2,000-mile stretch of border with Mexico,’ Cleveland told the paper. 

‘It’s the most difficult to traverse — nothing but hills, canyons, mountains, even 2,000-foot cliffs. 

‘You look at this terrain and you think, ‘There’s no way people cross here,’ but yes, they do.’ 

Cleveland said the inhospitable territory took its toll: in six months, they found 17 dead migrants, where as previously they would only find one or two.

Migrants are seen having been detained by authorities in Terrell County

Terrell County says they need more resources to cope with the influx

Migrants who sought shelter in a rural outhouse are seen in an image shared by Terrell County sheriffs

Cleveland stressed that his region was dangerous, and lives were being lost

The sheriff told the Post that new technology, such as infrared cameras, highlighted the scale of the problem, and showed how many people were still getting through. 

He said Terrell County recorded 8,000 ‘got aways’— migrants who crossed illegally and evaded the authorities – in Sanderson in 2022.

‘I can promise you, there’s many more out there,’ he said. 

‘When you have 91 miles of border — we don’t know all that is happening out there. We don’t. There’s many more.

‘We’re seeing them but we can’t chase them because we don’t have enough people to go out there and give chase.’

On Friday, the Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) said that border encounters for January were down 42 percent compared to the previous month.

The CBP said the decrease was a sign that a new initiative, announced on January 5, was working.

Migrant encounters in January were at their lowest level since February 2021

Joe Biden launched a scheme to accept up to 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, provided they apply at official migration centers outside the U.S. borders.

The plan would also allow the expulsion of as many migrants from those countries, who crossed illegally.

‘The January monthly operational update clearly illustrates that new border enforcement measures are working, with the lowest level of Border Patrol encounters between Ports of Entry since February of 2021,’ said CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller.

‘Those trends have continued into February, with average encounters of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans plummeting.’

Encounters of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans fell from a seven-day average of 1,231 on the day of the announcement on January 5, to 59 on January 31.

The figures mark a 95 percent decrease in just over three weeks.

As of January 23, the number of Nicaraguans arriving had fallen by 91 percent compared with the previous month, and the Cuban arrivals were down 85 percent.

Haitian arrivals decreased 32 percent, month-on-month, and Venezuelan arrivals were down nine percent.

Yet despite the encouraging-seeming data, the migrant arrivals were continuing.

Hundreds of Venezuelan migrants were caught on camera crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the last few days, after rumors began spreading that transport was being offered to Canada.

Around 500 people were counted crossing near El Paso overnight on Wednesday and into Thursday morning.

Several said they had heard that transport was being offered north towards Canada.

‘They said they would only be taking families,’ one Venezuelan woman in her 20s told KTSM/Border Report, walking toward the Rio Grande with her husband.

The Border Patrol chief for the El Paso sector tweeted this photo, saying they were Venezuelan migrants who had crossed from Mexico overnight on Wednesday

Another said there was confusion as to whether the rules had changed.

‘There is conflicting information. We don’t know what is really happening,’ she said.

‘They told us (in Juarez) they would help us get to Canada.

‘We were happy, but they were playing with our feelings. They gave us some hope that we would be welcome. They told us, “You’re going to walk to Gate 36. You will be welcome there. We will help you with your process.”‘

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, has authorized the handing out of free bus tickets for migrants in his city who want to head north to the Canadian border.

Adams has said he’s only bussing the migrants as a means to help deliver them to their preferred location – the same reasoning used by states near the southern border to transport the immigrants to New York City. 

Border officials, however, insisted that there had been no change in policy, and Title 42 – the pandemic-era ruling that allowed the government to send migrants immediately back to Mexico – remained in place.

‘Over 500 migrants, mostly from #Venezuela, attempted to illegally enter the country last night through El Paso, TX,’ tweeted Peter Jaquez, chief of the Border Patrol’s El Paso sector.

‘Our authority to expel migrants under Title 42 has NOT changed.

‘Migrants from Venezuela, as well as many other countries, are still amenable for expulsion.’

Border Patrol agents are seen, in a photo shared by the El Paso sector chief, at work along the frontier

Hundreds of migrants – said by the border patrol chief to be Venezuelan – are seen lined up at the border for processing

Agents are seen detaining migrants who crossed into the U.S. illegally on Wednesday night

Migrants walked across the border having waded over the Rio Grande