5 Bangladeshis held by border patrol agents in Texas

US border patrol agents on Tuesday arrested five Bangladeshis in Texas.

Laredo border patrol agents discovered the five individuals walking near the Rio Grande, one of the principal rivers in the southwest US and northern Mexico, the local kgns.tv reported on Wednesday.

Since October 1 last year, 609 Bangladeshis have been detained at the US border.

When agents questioned the five individuals on Tuesday regarding their immigration status, it was revealed that they were from Bangladesh. The individuals were processed accordingly, it added.

“The Laredo Sector Border Patrol continues to have the highest number of Bangladeshi apprehensions.”

The report did not mention the names of the detainees or the route they took to reach Laredo.

The Washington Times on April 18 reported that illegal immigrants from Bangladesh paid up to $27,000 to international trafficking rings to ferry them from Asia to the western hemisphere, where they make their way up through Central America and Mexico to the US border, where they are led across the Rio Grande.

“It's definitely a transnational criminal organisation that's doing that networking,” Scott Good, acting deputy chief patrol agent for the Laredo, was quoted as saying by the Washington Times.

The transnational syndicates facilitate the entire trip from start to finish, he said.