Border Patrol faces challenges after smugglers steer migrants into Arizona desert
Smugglers are suddenly steering migrants through desolate and dangerous areas of the Arizona borderlands.
Associated Press
SIERRA VISTA — Cochise County and border community officials were not notified before U.S. Customs and Border Protection began to release migrants into the county on Wednesday at unexpected times.
The Border Patrol began releasing migrants into Bisbee, Douglas, Nogales and Casa Grande as they reached their capacity to legally hold them. More than 157 migrants have been released onto the streets of Bisbee and Douglas since the releases began.
CBP notified the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office and the county’s emergency management about the releases into the rural southeastern Arizona county only after they happened, according to Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels.
Dannels held a news conference in Sierra Vista on Thursday alongside a group of mayors and officials from Cochise County communities, including Benson and Fort Huachuca. Officials urged the federal government to step in and help fix the issue that has been left to the border communities.
“It’s sad that you’re going to release migrants in a community that doesn’t have the basic essentials,” Dannels said. “That is inhumane in itself.”
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said her office will be doing what it can on a state level to alleviate the situation, which she described as a federal issue where the “federal government continues to fail.”
“The situation has reached an unsustainable capacity,” Hobbs said during a bill signing event on Thursday.
“We’re continuing to see resources that should go directly to our border communities go to other states. It’s incredibly frustrating.”
Arizona has only received $29.8 million of the $368 million available under the new federal Shelter and Services Program this year. Comparatively, New York City has received more money than any single border state under the program, being given $106.8 million.
Funding under scrutiny: Federal funding process for humanitarian aid at border comes under scrutiny
The state-sponsored busing program that transports migrants from rural and remote border communities to Tucson and Phoenix is still in effect. Hobbs implemented the program in May to prevent the unsheltered release of migrants into rural communities that don’t have the infrastructure to support them.
The communities are often miles away from the nearest airport and bus depots that can help them reach their final destinations elsewhere in the country.
The Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, which oversees the program, has spent more than $10.5 million to support the transportation of 10,247 migrants to ease the strain on border communities, according to Hobbs’ office.
The routes typically run twice a day from Douglas, Naco, Bisbee and Nogales to the Casa Alitas migrant shelter in Tucson and shelters in Phoenix. The Border Patrol usually will transfer migrants onto state-sponsored buses at specific times in the morning and the afternoon.
The street releases on Wednesday, however, happened at unexpected times and migrants were forced to wait at the locations until the state buses arrived. Some migrants wandered away from the locations and into the communities.
The Border Patrol has begun to release migrants erratically during the day, with releases happening every two to three hours, according to Daniel Duchon, director of Cochise County emergency management. About 10 to 20 migrants could be released during each drop-off, Duchon said.
“It breaks my heart when you see children as young as three and four being released and they have to sit under the overhang and rain,” Duchon said.
Migrant busing program: AZ busing program prevents street releases of nearly 5K migrants in border communities
CBP officials were invited to speak at the news conference but were not present as Dannels said they had not been allowed to attend.
“CBP is working according to plan and as part of our standard processes to quickly decompress the areas along the Southwest border, and safely and efficiently screen and process migrants to place them in immigration enforcement proceedings consistent with our laws,” a CBP spokesperson said in a written statement.
The Border Patrol coordinates with local governments and cities to identify locations where migrants can conveniently access transportation services or accommodations if nongovernmental organizations are over capacity, according to CBP.
The Border Patrol dropped migrants off in a Bisbee Safeway parking lot and the Douglas Visitor Center parking lot Wednesday and Thursday.
“They’re out in the heat, they’re out in rain just outside the Safeway waiting for these buses,” Duchon said.
Why are migrants released into border communities?
Nonprofit organizations in Tucson and Somerton usually receive asylum seekers and help transport them to Phoenix or Tucson after they are paroled into the country. The organizations help asylum seekers arrange travel to their final destinations while providing shelter, food and medical services.
However, if there is an increase in arrivals, shelters may reach their capacity and cannot accept any more asylum seekers.
The Border Patrol can only hold migrants for a certain amount of time in its facilities, and if the agency also is at capacity, it resorts to releasing asylum seekers under parole directly into border communities that are often unequipped to help them.
More: State now busing asylum seekers to Phoenix with shelters in southern Arizona full
Street releases in border communities were narrowly avoided in May when the state implemented bus routes to transport migrants to larger cities.
The migrants who were released were bused into Cochise County, processed and then released, Dannels wrote Wednesday in a Facebook post. Most of them did not cross through Cochise County but were laterally transferred from other Border Patrol sectors, Dannels added.
A church, nonprofits and private citizens in Douglas have stepped up to house and feed migrants while they wait for a bus to pick them up and take them to Phoenix or Tucson, according to Douglas Mayor Donald Huish.
“We’re set up just out of the kindness of the community with no resources at all to give them a meal and a place to rest until the bus shows up,” Huish said. “If the buses don’t come, we’re not sure what we’re going to do with them.”
There have not been any overnight stays in the church yet, Huish added.
U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., sent a letter on Thursday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pressing him for answers on the situation in his congressional district that includes the majority of Cochise County.
“Our local border communities should not be forced to bear the burden of this administration’s failed border policies,” Ciscomani wrote in the letter. “These areas are not equipped to deal with this influx.”
Ciscomani invited Mayorkas to visit Cochise County with him in order to see the burden that the issue has placed on border communities.
Street releases in Arizona communities have happened before. Beginning in October 2018, the Border Patrol occasionally released asylum seekers into small communities such as Ajo and Gila Bend.
The releases caught officials off guard as they scrambled to respond and transport migrants to Phoenix. The practice stretched into 2021.
Have a news tip or story idea about the border and its communities? Contact the reporter at [email protected] or connect with him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @joseicastaneda.
