Illegal Immigrants Flooding the Border by Charter Plane Now?

“The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) says human smuggling attempts by aircraft are becoming more common in the border state,” Fox News reports.

Texas DPS has stopped three human smuggling attempts via plane at different airports across the Rio Grande Valley in the past 30 days, according Texas Highway Patrol Staff Lieutenant Christopher Olivarez.

“We’re seeing an increase,” Olivarez said of human smuggling attempts by plane.

“It’s started to become more common. But … these are small, private airports. They’re not using the larger airports where there’s TSA. These are the smaller airports where you don’t have the security measures in place for private planes. It’s kind of hard to … do surveillance at every single airport.”

Olivarez explained the reasoning behind the increase in plane smuggling attempts.

“There’s more people coming in, and the more people you have coming in, of course, they want to find more ways to make it into the interior,” Olivarez said.

“But what’s unique is…you have to understand the different between the people who are being smuggled on planes — those are people who have not been processed. Those are people who are trying to avoid detection.”

Cont. from Fox News:

Border agents refer to these individuals as “gotaways,” or illegal immigrants who have not been formally released and have instead evaded Border Patrol.

In July, officials estimated to Fox News that more than 500,000 gotaways were known to have slipped past agents at that time in FY22 but were detected by cameras or other sensors. There have been about 55,000 getaways each month this fiscal year.

On Sunday, DPS disrupted a human smuggling attempt by plane at the Mid Valley Airport at approximately 11 a.m. that led to the arrests of seven individuals, including six illegal immigrants and one female U.S. citizen. One of the illegal immigrants was a deported felon from Mexico who was wanted out of Wisconsin in a child sexual assault case.

Agents were monitoring suspicious activity at the airport after receiving a tip, Olivarez explained.

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Texas DPS stopped two other human smuggling attempts by plane on Aug. 31, which involved 12 illegal immigrants, and on Sept. 23, which involved 19 illegal immigrants, according to the DPS officer.

The Blaze added:

Olivarez explained that charter pilots hired for these trips are not required to verify passengers’ citizenship status. Instead, they are only required to match the names of passengers with the list of names on a manifest.

According to Olivarez, pilots do not often know what is going on. He said, “They’re just told, ‘Okay, I’m going to charter this plane. We’re going to pick up this many passengers from this airport, and we’re going to take them to this airport.’ That’s it.”

Retired Customs and Border Protection agent and Texas congressional candidate Frank Lopez Jr. also questioned the use of private charters and airports.

“My question would be: Who can afford a private [plane]? Even just a propeller,” Lopez said. “I’ve seen the pictures of the aircraft that are being used. So, who can afford that? … Who is involved with this? And the people that are being smuggled — are these your run-of-the-mill illegal aliens? Or is there something special about them? Is there something that that makes them a higher value package, per se?”