Texas schools in Uvalde, other towns struggling with rise of migrant ‘bailouts’ in border communities

A Texas House committee report on the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, highlighted a troubling rise in migrant “bailouts” over the last 18 months that has alarmed school administrators. 

Around 50 migrants bailouts, which is when human traffickers fleeing law enforcement crash and allow migrants to scatter, occurred between February and May of this year near schools in Uvalde, according to the committee’s report. 

“Uvalde CISD parents became so concerned about the number of bailouts occurring near the elementary-school campuses that they offered to hire off-duty police to supplement the Uvalde CISD police presence,” Texas lawmakers wrote. 

Other school districts along the border have also noted the rise in bailouts and taken actions to protect students. 

Eliza Diaz, the interim superintendent for Brackett ISD, a district about 40 miles west of Uvalde, told Fox 29 San Antonio that they put large boulders in between their school buildings and the road in some areas. 

“It may slow down a high-speed chase, it may prevent them from actually lodging into the buildings,” Diaz told the local news outlet. 

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Miguel Zamora, a Border Patrol mechanic who lives down the street from the 18-year-old gunman who shot his grandmother in the face before speeding in a truck to Robb Elementary School, said that he was on his lunch break when he saw the suspect speed by. 

“At that time, I just thought, ‘It’s an illegal,'” Zamora previously told Fox News Digital, noting that police chases involving human traffickers are a common occurrence in Uvalde. “Here in a couple of seconds, we’ll see border patrol, something like that chasing him, and I never saw anything like that.”

The gunman would go on to kill 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School. The rise in migrant bailouts was partially blamed by Texas lawmakers for the lax response to the shooting. 

“The frequency of these ‘bailout’-related alarms—around 50 of them between February and May of 2022—contributed to a diminished sense of vigilance about responding to security alerts,” the lawmakers wrote.