The Texas National Guard has denied allegations that soldiers ignored cries for help from an unlawful migrant with a child in her arms who was struggling to swim across the Rio Grande.
A video obtained by CNN shows a woman who appears to be struggling to cross the Rio Grande as a Texas National Guard boat drives by.
The woman in the video can be heard yelling, “I’m begging you, please help me!” as the boat passes, yet the boat does not appear to stop and help the woman.
However, the Texas National Guard has since denied the claims, writing that there were no signs that the woman was struggling and the soldiers were monitoring the situation.
“Texas National Guard Soldiers approached by boat and determined that there were no signs of medical distress, injury, or incapacitation and they had the ability to return the short distance back to the Mexican shore. The Soldiers remained on site to monitor the situation,” wrote the agency in a statement, according to CNN.
Priscilla Lugo, an advocacy director for LatinoJustice PRLDEF who shot the video, said, “It was clear she was already in some sort of need.”
“She was begging for help. I was perpetually worried for her since the moment I heard her,” Lugo told the BBC.
This video comes amid a growing crisis at the southern border as vast numbers of unlawful migrants enter the U.S.
Anna Giaritelli, a Homeland Security and Immigration Reporter for the Washington Examiner, reported last week that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had 14,509 encounters with unlawful migrants at the border in a single day, the highest number reported in a single 24-hour period.
Gov. Greg Abbott has taken multiple steps to mitigate the crisis, including installing floating barriers in the Rio Grande.
These barriers prompted a lawsuit between Texas and the U.S. Justice Department in which the federal government alleged that Texas had “flouted federal law by installing a barrier in the Rio Grande without obtaining the required federal authorization,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
In the most recent development in this lawsuit, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the river is navigable and the barriers are an “obstruction” and ordered the state to remove them.
Abbott had previously said that Texas is prepared to take this case to the Supreme Court, claiming that the state has the “right to legally deploy those buoys in the water to prevent people from entering our country and our state illegally.”
