While Biden Deals With the Middle East, hundreds of invaders from all over the world keep squeezing through the wall
550 people crossing into Arizona in little more than an hour on Thursday evening in just one small patch of the border with Mexico
First comes the phone, thrust through the steel bars and twisted one way and then the other as its camera scans for Border Patrol officers.
Then comes the clanging, as the bars — already cut with an acetylene torch — are forced apart.
Only then come the people. Man, woman, child, woman, child, child, man, man, woman.
Eight bodies emerge on to American soil beside Donald Trump’s border wall in Arizona. They bear right, armed with instructions on how to find Border Patrol officers and hand themselves in.
While President Joe Biden focuses on high stakes Middle Eastern diplomacy and another crisis threatening to engulf his administration, it is business as usual along the southern border.
With the sun setting on Thursday evening, groups of as many as 150 young men made their way through the cactus-filled desert.
In little more than an hour, at least 550 people came through the wall close to the little border post at Lukeville, two-and-a-half hours south-west of Tucson. Some came in small family groups, others in processions so huge that the trudging feet threw a plume of dust into the air.
Business as usual for the migrants, the cartels who own the other side of the frontier, and for the weary Border Patrol agents whose only job now is to process paperwork and radio for buses to pick up the new arrivals.
‘None of us signed up to be Uber drivers or babysitters,’ said an agent in the sector who spoke on condition of anonymity.
‘This isn’t what we joined for. We signed up for enforcement not administration.’
That is not to say the job is easy.
Two days ago, agents got into a firefight with coyotes — the nickname for people smugglers. And with the sun getting low in the sky, the agent was getting reports of three people on the other side of the border with ‘long guns.’
Morale, he said, was crashing. Nine supervisors had left Ajo Station, his section, since January.
‘You see people getting out to go to investigative agencies,’ he said.
A coyote uses a mobile phone to scan up and down the border wall in Arizona as he prepares to send a group of migrants on to U.S. soil in a well-organized operation
Once the coast is clear, the coyote pushes open one of the struts in the wall which has already been cut, allowing through about eight or so migrants
Border Patrol agents say they are powerless to do anything other than babysit the arrivals. This spot is close to the legal crossing point at Lukeville in Ajo station
His work done, the coyote stands brazenly on U.S. soil. The opened strut can be seen in the foreground, at the point where migrants were able to enter
Meanwhile, the arrivals keep arriving. On Thursday they included people from Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Nepal, India, and Pakistan.
The routes are well-worn by now. From Senegal to Morocco to Spain to Ecuador to Colombia to Mexico City and north by bus, for example.
And the stories are just as well worn. The night’s big contingent from India all told a similar story, rehearsed on the 15 or so days traveling.
‘It’s the political thing,’ said 22-year-old Dhruv Patel, as he described how people from politically connected families like his face the constant threat of kidnap.
‘Threatening calls,’ said another young man in his group.
‘Criminality,’ said a third.
A little further from the border, a crowd of people walked towards a Border Patrol facility
The arrivals included people from from Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Nepal, India, and Pakistan.
The temperature cooled to a pleasant 75F as the sun disappeared behind the wall, easing conditions for crossers in one of the least hospitable areas of the country.
With that comes a record number of migrant detentions last month. Data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed there were 269,735 encounters at the southern border in September, beating last December’s record, and bringing the total for 2023 so far to 2.47 million.
The Biden administration has tried to respond. It announced recently that it would grant temporary legal status for nearly 500,000 Venezuelans already in the United States on July 31, while at the same time promising to deport those who arrived illegally after that date and failed to get asylum.
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And the deportation flights to Venezuela have begun as part of a diplomatic thaw with the government of Nicolás Maduro.
That might bring temporary respite, said Chris Clem, former chief patrol officer in nearby Yuma sector, but does not change the overall trend.
‘It’s a couple of hundred people a day, that’s a drop in the bucket,’ he said.
As seen from an aerial view a U.S. Border Patrol agent supervises as immigrants walk into the United States after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico on September 30, 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas. John Moore/Getty Images
‘Until there’s a significant policy shift, until there is a significant focus on reestablishing our border security as a priority, I think we’re gonna suffer and morale will suffer.’
CBP’s total encounters along the border in September were 269,735, bringing the total number of encounters for the recently concluded 2023 fiscal year (black line) to 2.48 million
At times the numbers were so big that the trudging feet kicked up clouds of dust
The conflict in the Middle East, he added, could have offered the Biden administration a solution but instead it has become a way to distract from the problems at the border.
What’s happening in the Middle East, in Russia, and with China, that could have been the for reinforcing our border security efforts,’ he said.
‘Not because President Trump wanted to do it, they could have said there was a real national security interest in doing it now.’
Border Patrol agents say they are powerless to do anything other than order buses to take the migrants on to processing facilities
In the meantime, nothing will change so long as there is a clogged immigration system that means arrivals are pretty much free to enter the country while waiting years for their court hearings, say the men and women charged with patrolling the border.
‘I’d send them straight back,’ said an agent working in neighboring Yuma sector.
‘There’s no real penalty for anyone coming in illegally.’
Written by Rob Crilly for The Daily Mail ~ October 27, 2023