I paid the cartel $6,500 to drop me at the border and now I plan to work for DoorDash in L.A, says Turkish migrant on the border as crisis deepens

• Turkish migrant Ugur has said he paid a Mexican cartel to take him to the border with the US, in hopes of making it to Los Angeles to work for DoorDash 
• Speaking to Fox News, the 33-year-old said he had paid $6,500 to the group and fled Turkey due to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan  
• Latest figures from Customs and Border Protection showed that in the month of February the agency encountered 189,922 at the southern border 

A Turkish migrant has revealed he paid a cartel $6,500 to drop him at the US border and plans to make his way to LA to work for DoorDash.

33-year-old Ugur, originally from Istanbul, told Fox News that he hopes to live in Santa Monica and work for the courier service.

Ugur was part of a group of six interviewed by the outlet in Jacumba Hot Springs along the southern border.

The group was made up of people who had traveled from Turkey or Uzbekistan, with Ugur explaining his home country had declined under President Erdogan.

He told the outlet: ‘USA don’t give us visa, and we come here illegally. If U.S. government let me work, I can work.’

33-year-old Ugur, originally from Istanbul, told Fox News that he hopes to live in Santa Monica and work for the courier service

Hundreds of migrants camp along with a campfire near the Rio Grande on the border between Mexico and the US on April 2

Groups of migrants arrive at the Rio Grande in search of crossing into the United States

Ugur added: ‘Every year, life in Turkey very difficult. More difficult. Economy very bad, and we don’t like Erdogan. He is [a] dictator, I hate him.

‘If you pay Mexican people, the Mexican Cartel money they let you come here. I pay $6,500 for Mexico and I come here.

‘One or two day I stay in immigration, after I will fly. I want to live in Los Angeles. If I do DoorDash I can earn $6,000.’

On the same day that Fox spoke to Ugur, around three dozen people were stopped along the southern border.

Kate Monroe with Border Vets, a group of veterans who look to patch holes along the border told the outlet: ‘This is a massive problem. Infrastructurally, economically we cannot support this for generations.

‘I can understand being somewhere else and being poor, not being safe, being hungry but the way in which we force people to come is broken.’

According to Monroe, she has collected passports from all around the world near the border.

She added: ‘Finding tons and tons of passports from Pakistan, Ethiopia, Ecuador, China just crudely tossed on the other side so that they could claim asylum, that was surprising to me.’

Kate Monroe with Border Vets said she routinely collected passports from around the world near the border

Latest figures from Customs and Border Protection showed that in the month of February the agency encountered 189,922 at the southern border

In this fiscal year alone, the agency have encountered over 1.1 million people at the border – which began for the government last October

Latest figures from Customs and Border Protection showed that in the month of February the agency encountered 189,922 at the southern border.

In this fiscal year alone, the agency have encountered over 1.1 million people at the border – which began for the government last October.

The record-high numbers of migrants illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border have made migration a top concern in this U.S. presidential election year.

During an interview with CBS News last month, US Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens said that he is concerned about the thousands of migrants that evaded authorities.

He told the outlet: ‘What’s keeping me up at night is the 140,000 got-aways. Why are they hiding? What do they have to hide?

‘What are they bringing in? What is their intent? Where are they coming from? We simply don’t know the answers to those questions.’

Owens said his department is on track to record some two million apprehensions by the time the fiscal year ends in September.

The chief said: ‘border security is a big piece of national security,’ and the illegal migrants being smuggled into the country are ‘exploiting a vulnerability’ facing the nation at present.

He said that the migrants who’ve made their way into the US this year have come from at least 160 different countries, some of which are many continents away.

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