Migrant Crisis Grows in Arizona Border Sector — 19K Apprehensions in One Week

The Biden administration’s Arizona border crisis continues to expand to an “unprecedented flow” of migrants crossing the border from Mexico. During the first week of December, Tucson Sector agents apprehended nearly 19,000 migrants.

Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin posted a weekly update on X revealing that his agents apprehended 18,900 migrants who illegally crossed the border from Mexico into Arizona.

Week in Review…
18,900 Apprehensions
145 Federal Criminal Cases
15 Rescues
10 Human Smuggling Events
6 Narcotics Events
2 Firearms Seized

A Mexican citizen was recently sentenced to prison for assaulting a Tucson Sector Agent near Douglas, AZ: https://t.co/g4oHXlYDvH pic.twitter.com/FqmWJtGVQR

— John R. Modlin (@USBPChiefTCA) December 9, 2023

The apprehensions resulted in 145 federal criminal cases being filed, 15 migrant rescues, and the interdiction of ten human smuggling incidents, Modlin reported.

The nearly 19,000 migrant apprehensions this week are up from 17,500 the week before and 15,300 during the previous week.

The massive surge of migrants crossing the Arizona border from Mexico has overwhelmed the capacity of Border Patrol officials to transport and process migrants. This left hundreds of migrants stranding along the border wall in winter conditions and forced massive migrant releases into the U.S. interior.

Breitbart Texas’ Randy Clark traveled to Lukeville, Arizona, and witnessed the encampment of stranded migrants along the border wall near the closed port of entry.

Clark wrote:

Breitbart Texas arrived in Lukeville, Arizona, on Saturday morning as a limited number of Border Patrol agents stood watch over hundreds of migrants from a host of countries as far away as Pakistan, the Middle East, the People’s Republic of China, Ecuador, and several West African nations. The migrants stripped branches from scrub brush in the Organ Pipe National Monument reserve to build fires for warmth as they waited for days to be processed and released by the Border Patrol.

…

As the fires burned out, some migrants walked into the reserve area to strip branches from small trees to fuel the fires. Lacking bathroom facilities, the necessity to use the federally protected reserve area to perform bodily functions was unavoidable as they awaited transport to a processing facility. Due to the remoteness of Lukeville and the demands of other migrant groups apprehended within the Tucson Sector, buses and vans arriving to transport the migrants away from Lukeville were few and far between.

The overcrowding of Border Patrol processing centers forced mass migrant releases in Tucson, Clark reported. Breitbart witnessed a steady stream of full buses dropping migrants off at the Casa Alitas Migrant Welcome Center in Tucson.

At the Tucson International Airport, TSA officials set up a special line for newly released migrants who are traveling without normal TSA-approved travel documents, Clark reported.

“As Breitbart Texas watched, several regular travelers were politely told to exit the special ‘migrant security line’ because they were not non-citizens,” Clark wrote. “The migrants traveling on Friday carried manila envelopes that contained a Notice to Appear and documents showing the migrants were released from federal custody on their own recognizance.”

During the first two months of the new fiscal year, which began on October 1, Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector apprehended approximately 119,000 of the 190,000 migrants apprehended along the southwest border in October and November.