Austin Mayor Steve Adler and New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio have been accused of illegally crossing the border into Mexico, and then crossing back into America without permission.
Both mayors’ offices flatly denied the allegation.
De Blasio and Adler, both fierce critics of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, went to the Texas border with about 20 other mayors from around the country on June 21, the day after President Donald Trump signed an order stopping family separations at the border.
According to a letter from the U.S. Border Patrol, a uniformed Border Patrol agent noticed a group on the Rio Grande River flood plain south of the Tornillo, Texas, Port of Entry, taking photos of the holding facility. The agent asked if anyone from Border Patrol or public affairs was there to authorize their presence. A New York Police Department inspector said no, according to the letter, and when the agent asked the group how they arrived, they pointed to Mexico.
The agent told them they’d crossed the border illegally and asked them to remain there while he got a supervisor and took them to an official crossing for an inspection per federal law, according to the letter. But the group disregarded the order and drove back to Mexico, according to the letter.
A spokesman for the Border Protection had no comment.
The letter was sent June 25 by Aaron Hull, the chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector to New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neill.
