Nearly 250 illegal aliens were arrested in New Mexico after midnight on Wednesday, many in need of medical attention after being smuggled into the country by "unscrupulous organized smugglers," according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection press release obtained by Fox News.
The group of 247 migrants turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents at Camp Bounds Forward Operating Base in Antelope Wells in the middle of the night. The group was “made up largely of family units and unaccompanied minors from Central America, [and] needed medical care,” Fox News reports.
Border Patrol agent Denisse A. Licon told local station KFOX14 that not just many but “most” of the 247 migrants claimed they needed medical care and that they had “traveled a dangerous journey.”
CBP in a press release condemned “unscrupulous organized smugglers” who are “exploiting the area and the proximity to the border to move large groups of people.”
“These groups of people are told where to cross and turn themselves in with smugglers never having to cross the border themselves and risk apprehension,” the press release reads.
The news comes amid an ongoing government shutdown over President Trump’s request for funding to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border among other border security measures.