Texas Department of Public Safety official Lt. Chris Olivarez told Dr. Phil that migrants actively seek to be taken in by federal border patrol agents because they know that they will be more lenient than Texas state guards.

Dr. Phil flew down to Eagle Pass, Texas, a major hotspot in the migrant crisis, where he interviewed local officials such as Olivarez about the ongoing chaos. Dr. Phil took a look at the difference between how the federal government forces Border Patrol to take migrants in for processing, while Texas’ own border enforcement works to actually stop the tide of mass migration.

Olivarez said that when illegal migrants are caught by Texas’ own border security agents for criminal trespass, they are processed through the state’s own legal and jail system just as any other person would who had violated the law, then are turned over to ICE officials for removal proceedings. 

“That’s our stance as a state,” he said. “It’s another deterrent measure, so they try to avoid us, they avoid us at all costs and that’s why some of the numbers here have decreased because of that, and because of the National Guard as well.”

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Dr. Phil verbally mulled over how migrants actively seek to be arrested by federal authorities who will take them into the country rather than state officials who will process them as criminals, “Okay, so they look for a green uniform instead of a brown uniform?”

“Exactly,” Olivarez confirmed.

After the talk show host said he could not currently see any migrants swimming the day he visited, Olivarez explained, “You don’t because if we look back in December, we had the largest influx here, over 300,000 across the southwest border. We were averaging 5,000 a day.” 

He added that the situation has changed since then, however, “because of what we’ve been able to do as a state, all these physical barriers making it more difficult, it’s become more challenging now for people to get across.” 

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After the Supreme Court ruled that federal agents could cut down razor wire, Texas had a famously defiant response by actively working to put up more such barriers to deter migrants. Olivarez also noted that as Texas steps up its own border security, “now we’re seeing this increase in Arizona and California, because there, there’s no consequences, there’s no barriers, and obviously they’re gonna choose the path of least resistance, so that’s why we’re seeing those numbers decrease in this area right here.”