These Venezuelans crossed the US border and got caught up in the war between Texas and the Biden government

Eagle Pass, Texas (CNN) — As the migrant crisis continues along the US-Mexico border and beyond, tensions are high between Texas and federal officials.

Here are the latest developments:

Cold, hungry and bloody from barbed wire scrapes.

This was the reality for a Venezuelan couple as they crossed the Rio Grande into the US. They waited two days to surrender to immigration authorities on the sidelines, which are lined with razor-sharp barbed wire fences and shipping container border barriers.

Kevin, 25, and Vanessa, 21, left their home in Venezuela three weeks ago for Mexico, the regime they have opposed for years, they told CNN on Wednesday. They now find themselves in the middle of an ongoing border war between Texas and the US federal government.

For security reasons, CNN only provides the couples’ first names.

With only the clothes on their backs and fanny packs, the architecture students, who spoke to CNN through thick layers of barbed wire, said they had only one viable option: cross the river through high water levels. and strong currents, losing most of their belongings during the journey.

Their home was no longer in Venezuela, a place the couple says they have no rights to. And their home might not even be Mexico, because of how dangerous it is, they said.

Their ultimate goal, after enduring the difficult conditions of travel to the United States, was to request asylum upon their arrival.

“We’re dying of thirst and cold,” Kevin said.

Vanessa and Kevin had not eaten since they began waiting for officers and were only able to share a bottle of water between them, which a Texas National Guard soldier gave them early Wednesday morning.

Under federal policy, immigrants like Kevin and Vanessa would have returned two days earlier, taken into the custody of federal authorities and transported for immigration processing. But in Eagle Pass, an area recently annexed by Texas, immigrants who jump fences or crawl through barbed wire are detained and charged with trespassing, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The barbed wire along the border is so thick that you can barely see through it. What you can see are pieces of fabric, possibly clothing, caught in the middle of loops of wire that stretch along the 3.5 kilometer fence.

Kevin and Vanessa, a Venezuelan couple, behind barbed wire on the border between Mexico and the United States.
Credit: CNN

Despite a Supreme Court ruling this week allowing federal Border Patrol agents to remove the fence after a state’s legal challenge to its removal has been resolved, it remains intact.

Texas authorities installed a barbed wire fence in the Eagle Pass area, which has recently become the epicenter of a migrant crisis and near where three migrants drowned this month.

The federal government has no immediate plans for mass deportations unless the situation changes dramatically or there is an emergency, a law enforcement source familiar with the operations told CNN.

However, given Monday’s Supreme Court ruling, federal law enforcement can and will cut or remove fences as necessary to enforce immigration laws and in the event of a medical emergency.

Another law enforcement source told CNN on Tuesday that federal agents were prepared to break the wire to help someone in trouble or if it was deemed “operationally necessary.”

The only way to get to the other side is to climb onto one of the shipping containers running parallel to the barbed wire fence and jump, and that’s exactly what Kevin and Vanessa did several hours after speaking with CNN, helping each other jump. Shelby Park area.

Moments later, members of the Texas National Guard were seen making contact with Texas DPS officers, who arrived and took them into custody, a CNN crew observed.

The takeover of Shelby Park by Texas authorities is a separate dispute from the barbed wire legal battle that is also expected to play out in court, the same source added.