Tucson continues to be the busiest border sector with Mexico for migrant encounters, the latest figures from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol show.
Agents here encountered 64,638 migrants in November. That’s more than the record-setting 55,226 migrant encounters the sector reported in October, the start of the federal fiscal year.
Across the southwestern border, CBP says it encountered 191,113 migrants in November, compared to 188,780 the previous month, the data show.
Authorities with the CBP continue to plead for more operational funds as the number of migrants coming into Arizona and other border states continues to rise.
Earlier this month the agency closed the Lukeville-Sonoyta port of entry, saying it needed to do so to assign agents to other duties to help process the influx of migrants.
Lukeville-Sonoyta is the main crossing Arizonans use to get to Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point, the popular beach resort town in Sonora. Earlier this week, the U.S. Consulate recommended Americans avoid travel to Rocky Point.
This weekend, No More Deaths volunteer Bryce Peterson said he and his band of desert aid volunteers are seeing the increase in migrant numbers first-hand, and it’s a hard pill to swallow.
“It was a scene of sheer distress,” he said of what occurred Friday evening along the border wall east of Sasabe. “Had we not been there, a lot of people would have died.”
According to No More Deaths, about 300 men, women, children and babies were stranded in Friday’s winter storm, soaking wet, recovering from sickness, and without food or water. With Border Patrol no where in sight, Peterson said it was up to his organization, and others like it, to help keep this group alive.
“We went in treating it as a mass casualty incident,” he said. “We had nurses and EMTs. The fact is, we succeeded in letting no one die, but my fear is nobody will know about this horrible thing that happened.”
The dire situation took its toll on each volunteer, Peterson said. “All of us there sat down and took turns crying,” Peterson said.
Through the night and into the early morning, volunteers drove the sickest of migrants to the Border Patrol substation for treatment and processing. Thirty minutes later, someone else woke up screaming for medical help.
“We would all much rather be doing literally anything else,” an exhausted Peterson said on Saturday. “But for the past month there’s been a really bad situation at the wall. Clearly, Border Patrol isn’t doing anything about it he said.
“We shouldn’t be out here doing the most insane triage ever. But if you saw the situation, you’ve have no choice but to help as a human.”
Border Patrol officials, on the other hand, say they’re doing the best they can with the resources they’ve got.
“It is a challenging situation that requires more staff and resources, which is why the administration requested supplemental funding from Congress to ensure we have what we need to carry out our mission,” the agency said in a news release announcing the latest border figures.
CBP officials said this extra funding would allow for supplemental funding for projected shortfalls and the hiring of additional personnel, as well as 1,300 Border Patrol agents.
