US border patrol targets and disperses migrant group

A video circulating on social networks shows the moment in which some migrants, with the flags of Venezuela and Honduras, are dispersed by the Border Patrol while trying to cross into the United States from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.

According to local media, the immigration authorities would have used rubber bullets to disperse the group of migrants.

In the footage, a group of civilians can be seen backing away after US agents advance towards them forming a line along the border crossing.

Also, in the video it can be seen that at least two agents point to the civilians, who go back towards the river, with two artifacts with characteristics similar to those of a firearm; In addition, the media reported that at least three shots were fired from said artifacts.

The US Border Patrol assured, through its Twitter account, that the agents seen in the audiovisual material did not fire rubber bullets at the migrants.

The US authorities pointed out that, before the video shows, the border agents were attacked by the migrants who threw stones at them, for which they repelled the aggression with alleged pepper balls, which are designed to disperse large crowds.

According to his version of events, the report on the use of rubber bullets is fake news.

Later, on the same social network, the Border Patrol union asked that both Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security of the United States, and Chris Magnus, Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection of the United States, come out to the media to deny the version of the alleged use of rubber projectiles.

“It would be nice if Mayorkas and Magnus stick their asses out in front of a TV camera and defend the officers against the ‘rubber bullet’ lies,” reads the tweet posted on their official account.

They ask for attention

Prior to the indecency between the Border Patrol and the migrants, the Citizen Council of the National Migration Institute (INM) requested, this Monday, the commissioner, Francisco Garduño Yáñez, to hold a meeting between the members of the Council and the authorities of the Institute to find points of agreement in the design of a care route for Venezuelans who are stranded in Mexico.

In a statement, the civil organization expressed that it considers that the meeting is urgent due to the circumstances in which Venezuelans are in the Mexican Republic, after failing to reach the United States and being deported from Venezuela.

politica@eleconomista.mx