The FBI arrested two illegal migrants from Venezuela for allegedly assaulting a Border Patrol agent, the bureau’s El Paso, Texas, office said in a press release Tuesday.
Kevin Escalona Gonzalez, 35, and Yuleixy Mata Fuentes, 27, are accused of assaulting a federal officer near Ascarate Park in El Paso on October 31, according to the press release. The two were part of a group that “dispersed and ran” after illegally crossing the border.
A border agent reached Gonzalez and Fuentes, who both didn’t abide by his orders and resisted arrest, the FBI said. The two illegal migrants then “pushed, dragged, and punched” the border agent.
“The men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol work tirelessly to keep our borders safe,” FBI El Paso Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey R. Downey said in the Tuesday statement. “Assaults on Border Patrol agents or any other federal agents/officers or task force officers will not be tolerated and will be addressed swiftly by our office so they can continue to carry out their sworn duty to protect our communities.”
Customs and Border Patrol agents fire rubber bullets on migrants as migrants retreat on the north bank of the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas. pic.twitter.com/3dvzFo458R
— J. Omar Ornelas (@fotornelas) October 31, 2022
Venezuelan illegal migrants engaged in a violent clash with border agents that day in a protest.
One of the protesters allegedly assaulted a border agent with a flag pole and another person threw a rock that injured one of the agents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Agents responded with “crowd control measures” that included a pepper ball launching system. (RELATED: Record Number Of Illegal Migrants Escaped From Border Patrol In October)
CBP has seen a surge in illegal migration at the southern border with a record of roughly 2.3 million encounters in fiscal year 2022. Venezuelans have increasingly come illegally to seek asylum, which the Biden administration recently sought to counteract with a measure to return them to Mexico.
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