The border in western Arizona was so porous this week that one group of illegal immigrants snuck in and walked seven miles — into a McDonald’s in downtown Yuma — without being stopped.
Another group marched to the gate of the Border Patrol’s headquarters and waited for agents to come out and get them, the Yuma County sheriff said.
“That speaks volumes,” Sheriff Leon Wilmot told The Washington Times. “They don’t have any agents to even respond.”
The usual flow of people through Yuma — 700 to 800 a day — surged to over a thousand, causing a back-up, forcing personnel to be shifted off line watch, and creating gaps that others came through. Farmers complained to local law enforcement that their fields were being trampled, and ambulances called to make medical runs for migrants in distress ended up swarmed by other migrants looking for rides into town, the sheriff said.
Republican Gov. Doug Ducey called it President Biden’s “December disaster”, arguing the administration’s border policies are to blame.
Mr. Ducey said the Border Patrol was so overwhelmed that he had to dispatch more state troopers and two dozen National Guard troops, along with vehicles and a utility helicopter. They will plug holes in the line where federal agents can’t reach right now.
“Mr. President, do something. Do anything,” the governor said in a press conference in front of the border wall on Tuesday.
While he was speaking, a group of about a dozen illegal immigrants walked through a gap in the wall behind him.
Agents this week were so overwhelmed that when migrants made it over the border, they often sat for hours waiting for someone to come get them. Sheriff Wilmot said his dispatch center was fielding calls from migrants begging for someone to come and give them a ride so they didn’t have to wait in the cold without water or food.
“So now you have individuals, women, children ages one and up, that were left to sleep on the levy by the fence for at least 24 hours without any Border Patrol there,” he said.
CBP struggles
Customs and Border Protection officials acknowledged a surge but indicated the numbers are returning to normal — or at least what passes for the new normal in this unprecedented year of border chaos.
“Yuma Sector and our partners across CBP worked expeditiously to screen and process those encountered. Local non-governmental organizations assisted in providing basic needs for the migrants still waiting to be taken into custody along the border,” the agency said in a statement, blaming “unscrupulous smugglers” for driving the flow of people.
“CBP’s message is clear: Our borders are not open. People should not make the dangerous journey,” the agency said.
Why the spike happened now isn’t entirely clear. Mr. Ducey suggested people were rushing to get in before the re-start of the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, which the Biden administration is reviving under a court order. The first new enrollees were scheduled to be sent back to Mexico on Monday to await the handling of their asylum applications.
Unlike other parts of the border, the demographics of the flow in Yuma are particularly tricky. This week’s surge saw migrants from Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba. And there are a striking number of men from Uzbekistan, according to Sheriff Wilmot.
Those folks are not easily expelled back into Mexico under the pandemic border emergency, so they are processed and typically released by the Department of Homeland Security in the hope that they’ll return on their own for their deportation hearings.
The Arizona flare-up comes months after an unprecedented incursion in Del Rio, Texas, in the fall. Thousands of Haitians crossed the Rio Grande to set up a migrant camp on U.S. soil, coming and going across the river on their own say-so without interdiction by the Border Patrol. At one point the camp swelled to some 15,000 people.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas surged resources to the spot, including the Border Patrol’s horse patrol. A series of images of an encounter between mounted agents and Haitian migrants went viral after some Border Patrol critics said they believed the images showed the agents “whipping” the Black Haitians.
Results of an investigation into that incident are long overdue.
Mr. Mayorkas visited the site and vowed a get-tough approach, saying the Haitians would be sent back to Haiti. Later, he acknowledged the vast majority were in fact released into the U.S.
The secretary was in San Diego for a border visit this week, but did not pay a visit to the nearby site of the new hot spot in Yuma.
Sheriff Wilmot said that was a mistake: “It’s just asinine that he would even contemplate not changing his plans to address a crisis two hours away.”
While in San Diego, Mr. Mayorkas said he “will be visiting Yuma and other places on the border very shortly.”
He said that would be his sixth or seventh trip in 10 months as secretary.
Mr. Biden, meanwhile, is about to close out his first year in office, overseeing the worst border situation in decades, without having made a visit. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is working on plans to stop migrants from coming, has made one visit, in June.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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