Border agents accused of just watching as migrants drown in shocking Rio Grande video

Texas fisherman says he rescued a teenager while three others drowned in river

Agents from the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were accused of watching as migrants drowned on the border.

According to a video from a life-long resident of the area, Jesús Vargas, the agents were seen standing-by as a woman and three teenagers struggled to swim across the Rio Grande river.

"You don’t have life jackets? They’re drowning these guys,” says Mr Vargas in the video, as first reported by Fox News 29 San Antonio.

“The girl didn’t come up no more, call the boat man, the girl didn’t come out no more,” Mr Vargas says, turning the camera to face a CBP patrol car and agents, who appear to stand-by.

The video continues to show the migrants struggling to swim across the border, before Mr Vargas, a local fisherman from the town of Laredo, Texas, acts.

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As Fox News 29 reported, he was able to save one of the teenagers, a boy he believes to be 13 years-of-age, with his fishing reel.

Three others, reportedly a woman and two other minors, thought to be girls, drowned in the Rio Grande, according to Mr Vargas.

In a statement acknowledging what happened, CBP’s Laredo Sector said in a Facebook post that two drowned – in apparent dispute with the claims of Mr Vargas – and that the situation followed a smuggling attempt.

“Agents witnessed several individuals exit a vehicle and attempt to swim across the Rio Grande river into Mexico.” said the CBP, whose officers arrested several individuals.

It added that an “individual was rescued by a local fisherman and rendered first aid by agents,” while “two individuals succumbed to the dangerous currents of the Rio Grande river and perished.”

The incident, which occurred on Tuesday last week and is under investigation, comes amid a surge in the number of crossings into the US from Mexico.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, said last week the US is currently experiencing the highest number of people being apprehended at the border with Mexico in almost two decades.

At the same time, 5,000 unaccompanied minors were said to be in CBP custody in Texas and Arizona recent days, amid a backlog of cases, and alleged overcrowding in border facilities – in what critics of the Biden administration have called a “crisis”.