(NewsNation) — The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) is preparing for surges at the southern border as people try to enter the U.S. before Donald Trump returns to the White House.
“We still want to maintain a proactive posture. We don’t want to be reactive,” said Lieutenant Chris Olivarez of the Texas DPS. “We want to be ready for anything, for any possible surge.”
To that end, Texas DPS officers have been conducting “mass migration response” exercises along the border. Among the strategies is stationing DPS officers in their vehicles, with flashing red and blue lights, every few hundred feet along the border.
DPS said that strategy is in place in the Rio Grande Valley, Del Rio and El Paso Border Patrol sectors. Officers have also placed loudspeakers along the border that play back a short, pointed message that can be heard across the Rio Grande in Mexico.
“Atención, atención. Es ilegal cruzar aquí. Hay una cerca aquí. Este no es un puerto de entrada,” the message says in Spanish, translated as, “Attention, attention. It is illegal to cross here. There is fencing here. This is not a port of entry.”
While the Texas DPS and the U.S. Border Patrol prepare for a possible surge ahead of President Trump’s January 20 inauguration, it’s possible the surge might not happen thanks to Biden administration policies that have significantly slowed illegal crossings.
“We’ve seen a significant decrease in illegal border crossings, especially in Texas, where numbers are down nearly 86%,” said Olivarez.
The Biden policies include denying the right to asylum to anyone who arrives at the border away from an official port of entry and without an asylum appointment with Customs and Border Protection.
But while individuals may think twice about illegally entering the U.S., the cartels are working harder than ever to smuggle people across.
Two recent examples of the cartels’ desperation were the discovery of someone hiding inside the gas tank of a semi-tractor and people “welded” into the body of a pickup truck. Border Patrol agents had to pry the sides of the truck to reveal people inside the body.