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   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: democrat-criminals@mail.house.gov   
      
   https://apnews.com/article/lukeville-arizona-border-crossing-closed-   
   ae04e8c861a95e98dbfc8d49244cf092   
      
   LUKEVILLE, Ariz. (AP) — Gerston Miranda and his wife were among thousands   
   of migrants recently arriving at this remote area on Arizona’s southern   
   border with Mexico, squeezing into the United States through a gap in the   
   wall and walking overnight about 14 miles (23 kilometers) with two school-   
   aged daughters to surrender to Border Patrol agents.   
      
   “There is no security in my country,” said the 28-year-old from Ecuador,   
   who lost work when his employer closed due to extortion by criminals.   
   “Without security you cannot work. You cannot live.”   
      
   A shift in smuggling routes has brought an influx of migrants here from   
   countries as diverse as Senegal, Bangladesh and China, prompting the   
   Border Patrol to seek help from other federal agencies and drawing   
   scrutiny to an issue critical in next year’s presidential elections.   
      
   With hundreds of migrants crossing daily in the area, the U.S. government   
   on Monday indefinitely shut down the nearby international crossing between   
   Lukeville, Arizona, and Sonoyta, Mexico, to free Customs and Border   
   Protection officers assigned to the port of entry to help with   
   transportation and other support. The agency also has partially closed a   
   few other border ports of entry in recent months, including a pedestrian   
   crossing in San Diego and a bridge in Eagle Pass, Texas.   
      
   Customs and Border Protection “continues to surge personnel and resources   
   to the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector to expeditiously take migrants into   
   custody,” the agency said Sunday. “The fact is we are enforcing the law,   
   and there are consequences for those who fail to use lawful pathways.”   
      
   “Individuals encountered at the border are screened and vetted, and those   
   without a legal basis to stay are removed,” it said, adding that   
   consequences can include a minimum five-year bar on re-entry. The agency   
   said it is also focusing efforts on smugglers and transportation networks   
   like bus lines that bring the migrants through northern Mexico.   
      
   Critics of closing the Lukeville crossing, including Arizona Democratic   
   Gov. Katie Hobbs; the state’s two U.S. senators, the governor of Mexico’s   
   Sonora state and the leadership of the nearby Tohono O’odham Nation, said   
   it could harm trade and tourism. Hobbs urged President Joe Biden to   
   reassign the 243 National Guard members already in the Tucson sector to   
   help reopen the Lukeville crossing.   
      
   The morning after it was closed, about a dozen Border Patrol agents in   
   olive green uniforms watched over some 400 migrants who had spent the   
   night by the towering wall of steel bollards, wrapped in shiny Mylar   
   blankets they later discarded among saguaro cactus and Palo Verde trees.   
      
   Three or four times as many CBP field operations officers in navy blue   
   uniforms helped the migrants into white vans for a short drive to a   
   canopied field intake center. From there, agents took migrants for   
   processing to the Border Patrol’s Ajo station, a half-hour north, or to   
   other locations such as Tucson.   
      
   U.S. authorities have been so short-handed in Arizona that they have used   
   charter flights to transfer some migrants from Tucson to three Texas   
   border cities for processing, according Witness at the Border, an advocacy   
   group that analyzes flight data.   
      
   Federal air marshals who provide security on commercial flights, and even   
   Federal Protective Service officers who guard U.S. government buildings,   
   are being diverted to the border, officials have said, without saying   
   exactly where they are going.   
      
   “We are seeing a lot of different kinds of uniforms down here,”   
   humanitarian aid worker Tom Wingo said in Lukeville.   
      
   Nonprofit groups worry about the migrants’ well-being.   
      
   “This is a humanitarian crisis that’s happening in our own backyard,” said   
   Dora Rodriguez, chairperson of the Tucson nonprofit Humane Borders, which   
   keeps water tanks on the border for migrants. “There are hundreds of   
   people, including infants and children, who are stranded in remote areas   
   of the desert for days.”   
      
   The Lukeville area’s popularity as a place to cross the border from Mexico   
   into the U.S. emerged in recent months. It’s one of the most striking   
   examples of migrants shifting to a remote area, putting the Border Patrol   
   on its heels. In 2019, Antelope Wells, New Mexico, became a popular spot.   
   This year also has seen hundreds of migrants camping in the mountains of   
   Jacumba Hot Springs, California, waiting for agents to process them.   
      
   Because Lukeville is so remote, Border Patrol staffing is light, so   
   traffickers in the region controlled by Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel steer   
   people there. The arrivals last week included 41-year-old Luiz Velazquez,   
   his wife and their three children from Zacatecas, a Mexican state plagued   
   by drug cartel violence.   
      
   Heat-related illness was a major concern several months ago when daytime   
   temperatures climbed into the triple digits. The worry now is overnight   
   temperatures in the 40s, in a place where the closest hospitals and   
   nonprofit migrant shelters are nearly two hours away.   
      
   Chris Clem, a retired Yuma, Arizona, sector chief, said it is part of   
   smugglers’ strategy to stretch agents as thinly as possible, forcing   
   highway checkpoints to close and other resources to be diverted for   
   processing migrants. The remoteness creates “enormous strain” on the   
   Border Patrol, he said.   
      
   Art Del Cueto, a Tucson-based vice president with the National Border   
   Patrol Council, said the union wants stricter measures to deter migrants   
   from coming. He said it’s not so much a matter of too few agents, but one   
   of too many migrants.   
      
   Heading into next year’s presidential elections, the border is a top issue   
   for voters, especially Republicans, and immigration issues could be a   
   liability for Biden, a Democrat, as he runs for reelection.   
      
   A national AP-NORC poll conducted in November found about half of U.S.   
   adults say increasing security at the U.S.-Mexico border should be a “high   
   priority” for the federal government, with 3 in 10 calling it a “moderate   
   priority.” Republicans were more likely than Democrats to call it a high   
   priority.   
      
   Biden’s approach to immigration combines new legal pathways to enter the   
   country with more restrictions on asylum for those who cross the border   
   illegally. Former President Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner for the   
   2024 nomination, has promised even tougher hardline immigration policies   
   in a second term.   
      
   Additional funding for border security has been held up in Congress over a   
   package to provide additional aid to Israel and Ukraine in their wars   
   against Hamas and Russia.   
      
      
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