El Paso is a ghost town days after stampede involving 600 MIGRANTS as Gov. Abbott threatens full force of law as part of $10 BILLION border plan

The site of last week's migrant riot in El Paso had largely emptied out Monday, as the Texas National Guard sent in more troops and reinforced the crossing with more razor wire. 

Thursday, some 600 migrants stormed the barrier placed by Texas soldiers and had violent confrontations-- resulting in the arrest of one migrant for assaulting a service member.

Junior Evaristo-Benitez, 21, of Honduras, has been charged with assault on a public servant, a 3rd degree felony, and is being held at the El Paso County Jail, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed.

'We continue to reinforce border barriers and repel any illegal immigrants,' Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted Monday. 

'Texas is holding the line.'

A migrant man looks to breach a heavily fortified razor wire fence from the bank of the Rio Grande river in El Paso, Texas, U.S., March 24

Most migrants moved away from Gate 36, the site of last week's riot, looking for less fortified areas to enter the US

A dozen additional migrants were identified as 'ringleaders' in planning Thursday's riot will also be facing federal charges, sources told DailyMail.com. 

The migrants had attempted to storm the border Wednesday night, throwing rocks at Texas National Guard members, but ended up dispersing, another source explained.

Images of the bedlam showed hordes of migrants first climbing over a triple layer of razor wire and then pushing past and overpowering national guard members who tried to stop them.

Over the weekend, soldiers under Abbott's direction continued to turn away migrants who had already crossed into the US and were attempting to make asylum claims with the US Border Patrol.

In order to reach federal agents, migrants had to get past guards members first who held . 

Texas has spent a staggering $10 billion on the governor's border security plan, however, it's unclear how much of an impact it's having on border crossings.

The number of migrants illegally entering the country through the Lone Star State has sharply fallen off since December.

Once ground zero for the border crisis, migrant encounters in Eagle Pass have fallen from a high of 23,000 in one week to 2,600 in one week of March, per federal statistics.

Instead, traffic has shifted to hotspots in California and Arizona. 

In February, 87,000 migrants came into California and Arizona, compared to 53,000 in Texas, according to US Border Patrol. 

Last year, Texas saw 76,000 migrant encounters, while the other two states had a combined total of 55,000 migrant crossings.

In recent weeks, Eagle Pass, Texas has become a ghost town. The once popular crossing spot has seen a huge decline in migrant crossings

Migrants wait behind razor wire after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States in Eagle Pass, Texas, U.S., September 28,

Last week, 600 migrants easily overpowered Texas National Guard members in El Paso by simply climbing over the wire fencing put in place by Gov. Abbott by simply putting blankets over it

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump listens as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at Shelby Park during a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has credited his border security plan, Operation Lone Star, which the New York Times estimated has cost taxpayers $10 billion dollars, with the decline.

'The cartels have rerouted their routes to cross the border because Texas is the only state that’s putting up any resistance,' Abbott said during a news conference in Eagle Pass last month.

In January, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seized a city park where migrants had been wading in large numbers across the river that separates the US and Mexico because the water was low there.

Abbott also kicked out US Border Patrol agents, claiming the federal government was not doing enough to stop illegal entries.

The Republican governor reinforced with 2.5 miles of land he seized - stopping nearly all the migrants from crossing in that particular spot.

However, his actions simply pushed migrants out to other crossings in more rural areas.

Most border experts believe Abbott's actions did have an impact on crossings, but Mexican cartels have the ultimate say over where migrants cross.

Mexico too step up border security around the new year, stopping migrants from ever reaching the border. 

Under this order, Abbott claims 505,800 illegal immigrants have been arrested and prevented from getting into the US since Operation Lone Star began in March 2021.

However, Texas has still seen more than 4 million migrants flood over the border into the state in the same time period. 

A group of Venezuelans  used cardboard on their backs to avoid being cut while crawling under a razor wire barrier placed to stop migrants from entering El Paso, Texas

The Supreme Court did not rule that the wire fencing Texas deployed was unlawful. The high court only said that federal agents could cut it or move it if they needed to

Texas placed razor wire at Shelby Park in the migrant hot spot of Eagle Pass, Texas for more than a year

Abbott has only stopped 12.6% of those who crossed into his state. 

The Republican governor has also exported more than 107,000 migrants to cities that claimed they would welcome migrants, like New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Additionally, the program has been controversial, as Abbott has pulled $360 million from prisons to pay for the program for just 10 months, and at least $875 million was diverted from the state's emergency fund and sent to the border instead in 2022, alone, according to the Texas Tribune.