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Officials said the bridge in El Paso, Texas, where federal agents clashed with large groups of migrants trying to get in, was safe and clear Sunday night.
Large groups of angry migrants attempting to cross the US border across the Paso del Norte Bridge were met with roadblocks, barbed wire and riot gear, as shown in video of the clashes.
Clashes in the afternoon prompted officials to close the bridge’s northbound lanes, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Roger Mayer said in a statement.
According to him, “measures to strengthen the port” on the bridge began around 13:30.
“A large group of people formed on the Mexican side of the border and moved closer to the international border, posing a potential mass infiltration threat,” Mayer said.
Similar infiltration attempts also took place at two other land ports in the region, Bridge of the Americas and Stanton Crossing, prompting authorities to put up temporary barriers at those locations on Sunday afternoon, CBP reported.
The video captures moments of angry migrants screaming and beating CBP officers dressed in riot gear with accordion wire separating sides.
On Monday, President Joe Biden is expected to travel to San Diego, the country’s largest city on the US-Mexico border, to meet with the British and Australian prime ministers. Trips to the barrier were not planned.
Two sources familiar with the Biden administration’s border planning said last week that the Trump administration is considering controversial policies to help dissuade migrants from crowded ports and law enforcement.
The Trump administration’s “detention families” policy of detaining migrants and their children at the border was rebuffed by the Biden administration shortly after Biden took office.
Amid Republican border security efforts and the opening in May of a pandemic-era loophole that allows authorities to turn down asylum seekers, Biden is seeking new ways to control northward migration.
El Paso officials, while saying their city is facing a migration crisis that began in April, said most of the migrants at the regional crossings are from Venezuela.
Experts say Venezuelans are fleeing the high cost of living, high unemployment and political unrest.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, of Texas, a senior member of the subcommittee on homeland security appropriations, criticized the migrants for Sunday’s unruly demonstration.
“I know they’re tired of waiting and everything,” he told El Paso-based NBC member KTSM, “but things like that just don’t help their cause.”
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