YUMA, Ariz. — A Republican senator who has backed President Trump’s call for additional physical security at the southern border said Wednesday the current migrant surge cannot be solved with a wall or additional physical measures and that it will only be stopped by legal changes.
Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., said building more wall or fence along the U.S.-Mexico border will not stop the “crisis” from “continuing to get worse.”
“Until we close these loopholes, even if we fully secured the border, with infrastructure, border wall, agents, roads, and technology, if these loopholes are not closed, we’re going to continue to have thousands of individuals that are crossing over and taking advantage of these loopholes and overwhelming communities,” McSally told reporters at a press conference during a recess visit to Yuma.
The first-term junior senator said she is “talking often” with the Republican mayor of Yuma, Douglas Nicholls, about solutions to the city’s being inundating with migrants. On Tuesday, Yuma declared a state of emergency, saying it was unable to house and care for the roughly 22,000 people who have been released from federal custody in the state of Arizona over the past month.
Yuma’s shelters can hold 150 people comfortably and 200 if necessary. McSally said on Tuesday night the shelter was set to have 320 people in the facility because Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities were also at capacity or forced to release people under legal time constraints.
Border Patrol Yuma Sector spokesman Justin Kallinger told the Washington Examiner Wednesday the city and nongovernmental organizations are not the only ones with their hands tied.
“We’re not only at a personnel loss, but a facility loss,” he said.
Yuma’s three Border Patrol stations can hold a maximum of 500 people. Agents are supposed to process migrants within 72 hours, then transfer them to ICE; however, they have been apprehending between 100 and 350 people per day. As a result, people are being directly released from their custody because ICE is out of room.
Instead, McSally pushed for a legislative fix, the narrower, the better. She said the Flores settlement agreement needs to be amended to detain families for more than 20 days while they go through asylum proceedings, the initial credible fear interview must have higher standards, and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act should be changed so that unaccompanied children arriving from all countries — not just those from places other than Mexico and Canada — can be immediately deported.
“I think we need to narrow some emergency legislation even more,” she said.
The senator said she is talking with Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin on “what loophole language needs to be” included in a bill and how to move it forward for a vote.
McSally shot down the idea of taking dollars from the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Administration. She said her focus was on immediate solutions, though it’s not clear how soon a legislative solution could happen.
The Trump administration began warning of a “crisis” at the border late last year. Since then, the number of people apprehended for illegal entry has continued to spike from 70,000 then to 92,000 in March.
