By Daniel Stefanski |
The crisis at the southern border continues to wreak havoc on law enforcement and local communities and to invite a growing number of concerns over the security of the nation.
John Modlin, the Chief Patrol Agent of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, posted on “X” that border agents based in the Three Points Station had recently “encountered approximately 2,500 migrants near San Miguel, Arizona.”
Chief Modlin added that there was a group of 1,000 aliens included in the total number for the weekend.
The Tucson Border Sector is one of the nation’s most active when it comes to illegal immigration, with over 373,000 encounters of migrants taking place in the just completed 2023 Fiscal Year. This number represented almost a fifty percent change from Fiscal Year 2022, when officials reported almost 252,000 apprehensions.
Though the encounters, arrests, and processing of these migrants have kept border agents extremely busy throughout the year, these numbers are not all they – or other officials – must worry about. The Tucson Sector has seen a growing number of ‘gotaways’ – migrants who successfully evade arrest and whose identities and motives are largely unknown. This sector is also a significant vein of drug trafficking for smugglers and cartels, who can largely operate without too much opposition when agents are tied up with a record number of apprehensions.
In Fiscal Year 2023, border officials encountered 2,475,669 migrants illegally attempting to cross into the United States across all sectors. This historic number broke the previously set record in 2022 (2,378,944). During President Joe Biden’s tenure in the White House, law enforcement has apprehended 6.2 million migrants at the southern border, as well as 1.7 million reported ‘gotaways.” Included in the number of FY23 apprehensions were the arrests of 169 individuals on the terrorist watchlist – also a top annual number in the history of CBP statistic-keeping.
The Tucson border chief ended his post about the recent apprehension of thousands of migrants over the past weekend, writing, “Tucson Sector agents continue to work tirelessly addressing the migrant surge across the southwest border.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
