U.S. border patrol agents arrested over 200 immigrants at two locations in Texas on Thursday. Around 80 were arrested in McAllen, then nearly 140 were detained in Alton.
The raid in McAllen happened when agents discovered a camp near an abandoned tennis court, reports The Monitor. The immigrants, who were mostly from Central America, said they had been there for a week. They had little food and only shared water from a single gallon shared among 35 people.
Border Patrol spokesman Danny Tirado told the Monitor that they detained at least 80 people, but could not confirm how many of those people were guarding the immigrants. Officials searched the area for weapons after the immigrants said that their guards were carrying assault rifles.
Meanwhile, KRGV reports that a stash house was raided in Alton. There, 62 immigrants were found in a trailer and another 70 in a brick house. Twenty others were arrested at another stash house.
According to the Associated Press, the Border Patrol has arrested over 154,000 immigrants in the southernmost area of Texas at the border with Mexico. Most of these immigrants are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
“I’m scared to go back to my country,” one immigrant from El Salvador told the Monitor. “There’s a lot of crime and it’s hard to live there. There’s no work.”