By Daniel Stefanski |
A report of suspected ‘gotaways’ from the southern border made for some frightening Arizona news.
This week, NewsNation’s National Correspondent, Ali Bradley, revealed that there may have been a group of men, who were armed, traveling just south of the Phoenix-metro area. She posted, “NEW: Armed men in camo, carrying large backpacks seen with a migrant group just 70 miles from Phoenix over the weekend – Agents responded, even requested BORTAC at one point but they came up empty handed. Agents say migrants often use that area to try to evade law enforcement, but say the fact that they are armed is concerning.”
Bradley shared information from her sources, adding that “more than 630k people successfully evaded law enforcement in FY23 – 1.2M over the last 2 years.”
The map Bradley included in her “X” post showed that the encounter with the armed men may have occurred near the Table Top Wilderness just south of Interstate 8, which is a popular pick-up location for drug smugglers, who use the brush to conceal themselves as they wait for load cars to stop by for the stashes they carry from the Mexican border.
Former Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Mark Morgan, commented on the ‘gotaways’ in a May 2023 article published by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), saying, “Who do you think are the ones getting away? It’s not your upstanding citizens. That’s where the criminal element is coming in. That’s where the gang members are getting through.”
FAIR also noted that “The Department of Homeland Security, attempting to downplay the extent of the gotaway problem, is engaging in a statistical shell game to hide these illegal entries.”
In a 2021 interview, Art Del Cueto, the Vice President for the National Border Patrol Council, addressed the growing concerns over ‘gotaways’ (which have exploded in size and scope since that year). Del Cueto said, “One of the main issues that affects Tucson Sector is the got aways. Not enough focus has been done and put on these got aways….Those are the individuals that did that extra to try to avoid apprehension, to try to avoid detection, and those are where I believe your true hardened criminals are. We’re not talking about people who are from South America or Central America. We’re talking about people from all over the world.”
Another former Acting ICE Director, Tom Homan, made the following comments in a 2022 Fox News interview about the dire situation surrounding the number of ‘gotaways’ from the open southern border. He asserted, ““[t]his isn’t just about illegal immigration. … this is about public safety, because the Border Patrol has arrested over 12,000 … convicted criminals. So how many of the … almost 500,000 ‘gotaways’ based on camera traffic, based on sensor traffic, based on drone traffic that the Border Patrol couldn’t respond to … were criminals or gang members? Also, Border Patrol has already arrested 16 people on the FBI screening database. How many of that 500,000 are known or suspected terrorists? We don’t know. I’m afraid someday we’re going to find out. So this isn’t just an illegal immigration problem. It’s a public health crisis because of COVID. It’s a public safety crisis. And there’s a national security crisis of huge proportions.”
It’s not just reporters and government officials sounding the alarm about the border ‘gotaways.’ Jim Chilton, a fifth-generation Arizona rancher has seen the realities of camouflaged men coming across his property for years. In an interview with Range Magazine, Chilton said, “For seven years, (we) have collected motion activated camera film of drug packers, previously deported persons and other illegals crossing through our ranch. Of approximately 100 trails traversing our ranch, only five have hidden motion-activated cameras. Just during the six months ending July 2022, these cameras have recorded 1,467 images of illegal border crossers. On our ranch, border crossers are wearing camouflaged clothes, backpacks and carpet shoes. Almost all are men…The aforementioned video documents an approximately 10-fold increase in the number of international border crossers on our ranch compared to prior years.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
