South Texas police chief pushes for increased border patrol: 'They can obviously use more help’

The southern border crisis has had reverberating effects on his city's safety and authorities need more help, the Del Rio, Texas chief of police said in an interview.

"One of the things that impacts us the most is human smuggling that comes through here; they have a disregard for life it seems like as they come through," police chief Frank Ramirez told Fox News Digital.

Ramirez said drivers involved in human smuggling operations often drive very "recklessly", causing safety concerns for the town.

Ramirez said he joined around the same time of the Haitian migrant surge that occurred in Del Rio in September 2021. Ramirez said since then, they have had "influxes like that," but believes Customs and Border Patrol is better prepared and working with law enforcement to handle influxes.

"The great part is that we work with DPS, and we have a great relationship with Border Patrol, and we work as one," Ramirez said.

Ramirez added, "Border Patrol, I know, they're doing the best they can with the people they have, but, they can obviously use more help." 

Ramirez said it would greatly help their community for Border Patrol to have more manpower.

"They (Border Patrol) do have some pretty good technology, but with the processing, it takes so long to process and … it takes a lot of their agents. And I know that that's something that they're really wanting."

"For the most part, just more manpower for the Border Patrol, I think, would be one of the major things that would help over here," he added.

Ramirez believes that a lot of people coming across the border are coming for a "better way of life" but that there is also a "bad element" for some of the people crossing as well. 

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Texas residents who live along the southern border spoke with Fox News Digital about how the ongoing border crisis has directly affected their lives.

"Personally, I think that we're going to see something similar to a 9/11 at some point in the future. Biden opened the door, folks," said Paul Henrich, a rancher in Quemado, Texas. 

This comes as 87% of voters say the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border is an emergency (44%) or a major problem (43%). That’s an increase since February, when about 8 in 10 felt it was an emergency (41%) or major problem (37%), according to the latest Fox News national survey.

Fox News Digital also discovered an old, abandoned bus that was filled to the brim with the clothes of men, women and children. Other clothing was found in the brush between various houses. 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office stated in June that crossings along the Mexico-Texas border have decreased by 74% since implementing Operation Lone Star beginning in 2021.

Abbott launched Operation Lone Star to surge resources and law enforcement to the border. As part of that operation, he set up a buoy border barrier in the Rio Grande River, which sparked a lawsuit from the federal government.

Separately, the Biden administration has sued Texas over a recently signed anti-illegal immigration law that allows state and local law enforcement to arrest illegal immigrants. The administration says it interferes with the federal government’s authority and frustrates U.S. immigration operations and proceedings, in addition to hurting relations with foreign governments.

"Texas is holding the line at our southern border with miles of additional razor wire and anti-climb barriers to deter and repel the record-high levels of illegal immigration invited by President Biden's reckless open border policies. Instead of enforcing federal immigration laws, the Biden administration allows unfettered access for Mexican cartels to smuggle people into our country," Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze told Fox News in January. 

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, Texas border encounters dropped in June of this year, and in July there were 46,250 encounters; this number does not include any gotaways. 

Fiscal year 2023 broke the record for encounters with over 2.4 million, while December had nearly 250,000 encounters in a single month.

At the Democratic National Convention, Harris said she would sign the bipartisan Senate border bill that Trump did not support and which many conservatives have derided as ineffective. The bill would require hundreds of millions of unspent funds to be used on the border wall. However, according to Harris' advisers, the bill does not provide additional funding for the border wall.

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Elizabeth Heckman and Nikolas Lanum reported from Texas.