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Dashcam video taken from a Texas state trooper's car shows a shocking scene after police chase a human smuggler's vehicle in Del Rio, and about a dozen illegal immigrants pour out.
The driver, a human smuggler, ditches the car on the side of the highway as the illegal immigrants try to flee through a fenced hedge. The trooper was able to catch the driver and several occupants, however some managed to escape.
The video, which was shot last week in the border town, is one of many recent examples of law enforcement encountering cars packed to the brim with people who have entered the country illegally.
As of last Wednesday, the Texas Deparment of Public Safety told Fox News that their troopers have been involved in 473 car pursuits since the start of Operation Lone Star, which began March 4.
Operation Lone Star was created by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott amidst a wave of illegal immigrants from Honduras and El Salvador crossing the US-Mexico border. It deploys law enforcement in areas human and drug smugglers are known to frequent.
In the first two months, the Texas DPS made 598 criminal arrests and more than 16,000 referrals of illegal immigrants to the US Customs and Border Protection, according to a Valley Central news report.
On Saturday, Abbott said the operation had resulted in 52,000 illegal immigrants apprehended and 40 disrupted stash houses.
Meanwhile, scenes like the one in Del Rio have become commonplace. Fox News obtained video of a similar incident on the same day. Another trooper pulled over a truck causing the illegal immigrant occupants to flee.
Fox News' Bill Melugin reported that the driver and all of the occupants who ran were caught by authorities.
Abbott has been critical of the Biden Administration's approach to the state's ongoing immigration issue and committed $250 million for a new wall along the border after Biden scuttled the project in January.
'The bottom line is that, because of the current administration’s complete abandonment of enforcing the laws passed by the United States Congress concerning immigration, there is an unprecedented increase of people coming across border, and the federal government has left it to the state of Texas and its counties to pick up the load of responding to the unprecedented amount of people coming into the country,' Abbott said earlier this month.
Last month, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem deployed up 50 National Guard troops to the southern US border in Texas, in a mission funded by GOP megadonor billionaire Willis Johnson, the Washington Post reported in June.