At least 80 illegal immigrants were arrested in a makeshift encampment in suburban South Texas due to suspicion of entering the United States without documentation, the Associated Press reported.
Situated near an abandoned tennis club in McAllen, the immigrants were camped under tents and hunts camouflaged with mosquito branches and cacti around patches of scrubs.
Cardboard pieces were being used as sleeping arrangements, with little food or water for at least a week, authorities said.
It was unclear whether any of those arrested Thursday afternoon were guides suspected of guarding the immigrants, Border Patrol spokesman Danny Tirado told The McAllen Monitor.
About 8 miles west of McAllen, Border Patrol arrested 132 immigrants found in two buildings on a property in Alton just a short time after the first bust, according to KRGV-TV
Last year, more than 154,000 arrests were made by the Border Patrol on the section of the U.S.-Mexico border in southernmost Texas, more than anywhere else on the Southwest border.
The majority of the immigrants escape from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, according to the AP.
"Guides typically lead the immigrants across the Rio Grande in smaller groups and then mass them in so-called stash houses on the Texas side of the border until their transportation can be arranged for the next leg of their journey," the AP reported.
"We ate one burrito per day," said Alfredo Espinoza Rivera, who was arrested at the camp.
After paying a smuggler $7,000, the 73-year-old left El Salvador about six weeks earlier. He was trying to reach his father, a U.S. citizen, in Los Angeles, he said.
"I'm scared to go back to my country," he said. "There's a lot of crime and it's hard to live there."
