Mexican drug cartels spreading misinformation on social media caused a rush of more than 1,000 migrants to the Texas border, Fox News' Bill Melugin reported Tuesday.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez and National Border Patrol Council Vice President Jon Anfinsen discussed the crisis, which was fueled by a false Facebook post that went viral, telling migrants that the U.S. border was open near El Paso.
"What we saw at El Paso, that's an example of failed border policies. That's why we're seeing this mad surge of people coming across the border and also waiting in Mexico," said Olivarez on "The Faulkner Focus."
The Facebook post claimed that CBP would allow migrants to cross the El Paso bridge on Sunday if they showed up with children or had an "extreme" asylum case.
One female migrant told Melugin the posts were a "lie" and that instead, the groups were met with tear gas. She said groups of women and children are "desperate," waiting for weeks in the area to get into the United States.
Anfinsen said the situation is becoming more dangerous for Border Patrol, as groups of migrants head to the border.
"A lot of these groups out there are not expecting agents to be there. So when some of the agents actually do encounter them and try and take them into custody, we're seeing more people, more of our agents getting assaulted. So it's now a whole different issue, trying to get back to normal," Anfinsen said.
Olivarez said that drug cartels are trying to get as many migrants as possible to flood the border in order to "distract law enforcement" from smuggling operations.
"Border Patrol is overwhelmed, they're tied up in processing. So they want to expose more vulnerable gaps along the border, so they can bring across criminals, fugitives or drugs, whatever the case may be."
Olivarez said "it's very important" that the federal government moves to designate the cartels as terrorist organizations.
