Video: the immigration crisis in El Paso

Irene Armendariz-Jackson, a former congressional candidate, and her husband Bill Jackson, a retired border patrol agent, are working hard to inform people about the crisis at the southern border. They shot the video above and shared it with Just the News.  

"As I send that out," Armendariz-Jackson said on the "Just the News, No Noise" television show, "people think that it's a homeless shelter. No, it is our airport." She raised the health and safety concerns caused by these unprecedented levels of illegal immigration, saying the border patrol is "not vetting these people, not even medically," so these migrants could bring COVID or other contagious diseases into the United States without anyone knowing. Travelers in the airport, meanwhile, "try to stay away" from the many migrants camped out on the floors.  

Jackson echoed his wife's concerns, explaining that in normal conditions, the border patrol would check people crossing the border for any health or criminal issues that would make them unfit to enter the country. Now, however, border patrol agents are "not out there doing the job we were trained to do," he lamented.

With many agents put to work "behind a desk" processing immigrants rather than "out in the field," where they were trained to work, border patrol morale is plummeting, Jackson said, and the health and wellbeing of all Americans is at risk.

The only path forward, according to Armendariz-Jackson, is to hold politicians accountable.  "Both sides of the aisle have brought us to this place," she said, urging that people push back against career politicians who have allowed the crisis fester. Some of those leaders may finally be getting the message, as El Paso's mayor recently declared a state of emergency in order to deal with the thousands of people flooding across the border.