Five more Syrian refugees turn themselves in at US-Mexico border amid

According to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, five Syrian nationals presented themselves at the Gateway to the Americas Bridge. That group of Syrians included five people: a family consisting of a man, a woman, and a child, as well as two individual men. The Syrians were taken to separate detention facilities – the men to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Pearsall, Texas, and the women and children taken to a separate detention facility in Dilley, Texas. “There’s no evidence they tried to enter illegally”, said Shawn Moran, San Diego-based spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents Border Patrol agents. The six were apprehended along with two smugglers accompanying the group near the Arizona town of Sonoita.

The debate intensified after a series of terrorist attacks in Paris last week killed 129 people and injured more than 350. There were 104 asylum cases filed by Syrians this year as of June, nearly twice as many as in 2010, according to immigration court records.

But Syrians arriving this week did not try to elude immigration officials, instead presenting themselves at the border, like other immigrants, seeking asylum.

‘THIS is why Texas is vigilant about Syrian refugees, ‘ the governor wrote. I told you so.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent monitors the network of cameras at the… They all said they were fleeing their country in hopes of refuge in the United States.

Gov. Greg Abbott, at the forefront of a push-back by more than half the nation’s governors against the USA admitting Syrian refugees, declared that fresh apprehensions at the Texas-Mexico border illuminate his concerns.

Despite the fact that the Syrians caught at the Laredo border so far have not shown up on any databases, a few Border Patrol agents are not happy about the idea of Syrians entering through the US on their watch. Border Patrol agents apprehended 14 Syrians in federal fiscal year 2014. But Homeland Security officials said the Syrians had turned themselves in to a Border Patrol agent, seeking asylum.

So, Abbott’s statement has an element of truth – Syrians landed in USA custody – but it leaves an incorrect implication of how and why they got there.

Once they reach the border, Syrians are subject to the same asylum and screening process used for other immigrants, and it’s been stepped up in recent years in response to a surge of migrants from Central America.