Shocking footage appears to show a US soldier opening a gate to let a steady stream of border crossers onto private property in Texas — then watching as a bus pulls up to whisk them away.
Footage shared by Fox LA reporter Bill Melugin late Monday starts with a woman in military gear calmly backing up from a high fence in Eagle Pass as the gate is opened up.
In just over a minute, dozens of people casually walk through the opening — with others still slowly walking toward it as the clip ends.
As they enter, a small craft watches from the river, which Melugin said was the Border Patrol.
The same female soldier who appeared to have opened the gate then comes back into the frame, calmly watching the new arrivals as a white bus pulls up with another vehicle behind.
Melugin said the clip, from early Monday, “shows a large group of migrants crossing illegally onto private property.”
However, the Border Patrol denied it was illegal or even unusual.
“The video shows US Border Patrol enforcing US immigration laws, which require Agents to take those who enter the country without authorization into custody and to place them into removal proceedings,” a spokesperson stressed.
“Those individuals had already crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico and were already on US soil.”
The Texas National Guard told Megulin the soldier was “a Title 10 soldier from the Missouri [Army National Guard]” under orders from the federal government and working with the Border Patrol.
However, once on US soil, migrants cannot be turned away, with the law being broken when they enter the country, before reaching the gate.
A female US soldier opened the gate, according to Fox LA’s Bill Melugin. Twitter / @BillFOXLAThe Texas National Guard denied the soldier was one of its troops — instead saying it was “a Title 10 soldier from the Missouri [Army National Guard]” under orders from the federal government and working with the Border Patrol, Melugin tweeted.
US Northern Command said that its service members are stationed at the border only in support of Border Patrol, whose agents would be the only ones able to open the gate.
Border Patrol did not immediately respond to requests for comment early Tuesday.
The same soldier watched as a bus pulled up. Twitter / @BillFOXLAHowever, one source told The Post that the video showed nothing unusual given that the migrants were already on US soil.
Even so, the clip sparked plenty of outrage online.
“It’s harder to get into most secure office buildings,” one person replied, calling it “ridiculous.”
Officials told Melugin that the soldier was “under orders” from the federal government and working with the Border Patrol. Twitter / @BillFOXLA“Thank God there’s a camera there so we can watch them all come through in a nice orderly fashion,” one commentator said, while another claimed it showed that “the govt told ’em where to cross.”
The video came after it emerged that 530,000 so-called ‘gotaways’ — illegal immigrants known to have entered the country but not been caught — have been recorded since last October.
More migrants are expected to head to the US now that Title 42 — the pandemic-era law allowing many to be booted — has been lifted.
President Biden, however, has maintained that the border with Mexico is looking “much better than you all expected.”
