Border Patrol sending illegal immigrants from South Texas to El Paso to expedite processing

Overwhelmed by the number of immigrants crossing illegally into in South Texas, the U.S. Border Patrol is scheduled to send its first planeload of immigrants to El Paso for processing.

Border Patrol spokesman Daniel Tirado says the flight carrying about 100 immigrants is scheduled to leave Brownsville on Wednesday afternoon. The flight is just the most recent way the agency is trying to expedite processing under a surge of arrests that has recently averaged 1,000 per day.

The Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector has recorded more than 130,000 arrests since Oct. 1, representing an increase of about 67 percent from this time last year. The majority of immigrants are from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

The sector made more than 154,000 arrests for all of the prior fiscal year.