While the media has moved on from the border crisis in Del Rio, Texas, after the administration cleaned out a bridge encampment of 15,000 illegal migrants, a bigger fiasco is likely to draw reporters back in neighboring Arizona.
Border officials said that they are already seeing a surge of illegal crossings, some 2,400% over last year, and have put out an emergency call for agents to help with the crush.
Yuma Sector Chief Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem has been tweeting out horror stories, the latest being the capture of a convicted child rapist. And late last month, he said that agents were encountering 1,000 illegal immigrants a day during the week.
Townhall immigration reporter Julio Rosas, embedded in Yuma, said that illegal immigrants are pouring in where the wall that was under construction during the Trump administration ends.
On the ground in Yuma, AZ. While Border Patrol was processing a family of three who said they were from Venezuela, two adults and one minor walked up to the gap in the border wall.
Yuma Police officer told me hundreds of immigrants are crossing into Yuma every day. pic.twitter.com/8YnSxYWnIO
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) October 6, 2021
He’s also seen immigrants from unusual places, including those carrying passports from Uzbekistan.
Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies is also working the Yuma angle for the outfit’s website and posted the stunning numbers showing the changes in encounters so far.
“For the weekend of September 20, for instance, while the media focused on the Del Rio’s migrant encampment, Chief Clem announced that his agents apprehended more than 2,400 migrants. He reported similar numbers earlier, including 1,000 in a single day, “a new fiscal year record” https://t.co/XLJrjaXl9t
— Todd Bensman (@BensmanTodd) October 6, 2021
In August 2020, he said, officials in the sector encountered 684 migrants. In August 2021 it was 17,097, a 2,399% increase.
“Before a Del Rio, Texas, migrant camp of 15,000 briefly captured national and White House attention, another volcanic rupture point in the southern border fault line was already flaring: this one in Yuma, Ariz,” he blogged this week.
Yuma Sector agents arrested a child rapist that illegally entered the U.S. on Monday. The migrant, Edgard Antonio Gutierrez-Martinez, has felony convictions for first degree child rape and incest. Agents turned over the migrant to US Marshals this morning to face prosecution. pic.twitter.com/YXPs3LGMQG
— Chief Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem (@USBPChiefYUM) October 6, 2021
“In a sign that the Department of Homeland Security sees the Yuma Sector as poised to blow even more out of control, agents in other still-beleaguered sectors have been called in to help process an international medley of migrants streaming through this desert wilderness on the California-Arizona state line. Swells of border-crossers have forced the government to establish temporary tent shelters to process many of the illegal migrants into the country,” he added.
#YumaSector agents encountered more than 1,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border into the U.S. from Mex on Thursday, a new fiscal year record for daily apprehensions. The total includes migrants from 21 different countries. #BorderSecurity is #NationalSecurity pic.twitter.com/Ax2mpUkDbL
— Chief Patrol Agent Chris T. Clem (@USBPChiefYUM) September 23, 2021
One former border boss told Secrets that when added to the migrant caravan of an estimated 60,000 headed to the Texas border, the fall border crisis will dwarf anything the United States has seen.
Immigration analyst Steven Kopits said in a recent review of the border issue, “An open borders policy will have takers by the millions.”
