Governors Doug Ducey and Greg Abbott today urgently requested all U.S. governors to send available law enforcement resources to their states along the U.S.-Mexico border as illegal border crossings, apprehensions and unaccompanied migrant children in federal custody increase.
This week, the Customs and Border Protection apprehension numbers for the month of May were released sending shock waves across border states. The data showed more than 180,000 illegal aliens were apprehended crossing the border over the course of the month, a 674% increase from the 23,237 illegal aliens apprehended at the border in May 2020.
May’s numbers makes it the fourth month in a row of more than 100,000 apprehensions by CBP, and three consecutive months above 170,000—the highest totals in two decades.
In a joint letter from Governors Ducey and Abbott, fellow governors were told: “In response to the ongoing surge of illegal border crossings, with the accompanying threats to private property and to the safety of our citizens, Governor Abbott has declared a disaster and Governor Ducey has declared an emergency.”
The letter notes that Arizona’s Border Strike Force has intercepted 284 pounds of fentanyl since its inception. A lethal dose is a mere 2 milligrams, so the Border Strike Force’s actions helped prevent 64,410,064 deadly doses from making it to Arizona’s streets or other states.
“Texas and Arizona have stepped up to secure the border in the federal government’s absence, and now the Emergency Management Assistance Compact gives your State a chance to stand strong with us,” the letter states.
Law enforcement support from other states will provide additional manpower in Arizona and Texas, allowing for the apprehension of more perpetrators of state and federal crimes before they can cause problems in border communities and all states across the nation.
For the last 15 years I’ve protected Arizonans and Americans from dangerous criminals – the past eight working for the United States Attorney’s Office securing the southwest border. I’ve seen how decisions made in the halls of power – whether it be Washington, D.C., or Phoenix – play out on the ground. When our leaders put politics and political correctness before safety and security, there are real life consequences.
I know this because I’ve had face-to-face conversations with cartel members and listened to wiretaps on their phones. I’ve investigated them for drug trafficking, human smuggling, murders and mutilations. That was my job. I was a border security section chief for the District of Arizona.
In March, the flood of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally was 67% higher than at the same time in 2019, when the United States last experienced a surge of immigrants at the border. According to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, “We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.” Our southern border is not secure.
This is a crisis. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has declared a state of emergency in several counties and deployed the National Guard. And it is a crisis that is entirely President Joe Biden’s making. Every action by this administration sends a direct signal to bad actors who control the flow of immigrants and drugs across the border.
Biden’s public safety failure
The media frenzy surrounding Biden’s border crisis has served to cover up another truly frightening aspect of this administration’s immigration policy: the release of criminals from jails and prisons. On Inauguration Day, the Department of Homeland Security issued an immediate 100-day pause on certain deportations.
With few exceptions, individuals who were going to be deported and were just awaiting their complimentary flight (or walk) back to their home countries would no longer be removed. The immediate consequence was that convicted felons who did not have permission to be in the United States were released from prisons after their sentences and let onto the streets.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton successfully sued Washington and obtained a nationwide temporary restraining order preventing DHS from enforcing the 100-day moratorium. But the Biden administration simply issued replacement guidance, which had the same effect. Immigration and Customs Enforcement got the message – individuals who do not meet certain enforcement priorities should not be removed from the country. And unlike the 100-day pause, this new guidance has no expiration date.
The Biden administration’s enforcement priorities are so narrow that they exclude many violent offenders. Take, for example, the “public safety” priority. It allows ICE to remove individuals who have been convicted of an “aggravated felony.” Sounds serious, right? But what if I told you that some murder convictions do not qualify as aggravated felonies. To put it in perspective, at least one of the killing offenses for which former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin was convicted would not qualify.
Violent offenders on the street
I prosecuted a Honduran in 2014 who had been denied asylum but returned to the United States and got into an altercation during which he hit his victim in the head with a metal bar, fracturing his skull. The resulting aggravated assault conviction was not an aggravated felony.
And yet, this is the porous metric DHS has decided to use when determining whether our community’s public safety is a priority. Tragedy will undoubtedly flow from this awful choice, and it is not just those who reside in close proximity to the border who will be affected. President Biden, it’s time to make public safety a real priority.
Lacy Cooper was the border security section chief for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. She served 15 years as both a county and federal prosecutor targeting violent offenders, gang members, cartels and terrorists. She is now Of Counsel with the law firm of Schmitt Schneck Even & Williams. The views expressed in this commentary are her own.
On Wednesday, Governor Doug Ducey and a delegation of state lawmakers travelled to Yuma to call on the Biden administration to address the escalating humanitarian and security crisis on the U.S. / Mexico border. The officials received a briefing from U.S. Border Patrol, local law enforcement and community leaders.
The Governor was joined by Senate President Karen Fann, House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Adjutant General Kerry Muehlenbeck, Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot, Yuma Mayor Doug Nicholls, Yuma County Supervisor Jonathon Lines, San Luis Mayor Jerry Sanchez, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, local agriculture leaders and other leaders and members of the legislature.
The officials received a briefing on Border Patrol operations from Chris T. Clem, Chief of the Border Patrol Yuma Sector. The Yuma Sector encompasses 126 miles of international border with Mexico, with three checkpoints currently manned by over 700 Border Patrol agents.
The tour follows the Governor’s Declaration of Emergency and decision to deploy the Arizona National Guard to the border to support law enforcement efforts.
Ducey declared a state of emergency in six counties including Cochise, Pima, Santa Cruz, Yuma, Maricopa and Pinal. The team of up to 250 Guardsmen, along with state troopers and other law enforcement agencies, will assist with medical operations in detention centers, install and maintain border cameras, monitor and collect data from public safety cameras, and analyze satellite imagery for current trends in smuggling corridors.
The state will provide up to $25 million in initial funding for the mission.
A top official with the National Border Patrol Council said Tuesday that while agents prepare for an influx of immigrants from as far away as Valenzuela they are seeing an uptick of unaccompanied juveniles illegally crossing into the United States.
That is the priority, according to Art Del Cueto, and arguing about whether to call the situation a “crisis” is a waste of time and effort, he told KFYI’s James T. Harris.
Del Cueto grew up in Douglas and has been a U.S. Border Patrol Agent for nearly 20 years in Arizona. He serves as NBPC’s vice president and is host of The Green Line, a podcast available through iHeartRadio.
According to Del Cueto, the public’s attention should not be fixated on whether or not the growing number of illegal crossers at the U.S. / Mexico border should be defined as a crisis. Getting too focused on what word to use simply detracts people from doing something about what is actually happening,
“There’s too many individuals -politicians- that are going back and forth which each other arguing whether it’s a crisis or not,” Del Cueto said. “And I think that effort is better spent trying to figure [how] to stop the problem we have at hand.”
NBPC represents nearly 18,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents across the country. Del Cueto acknowledged that a change of policies following a change in president is to be expected. However, he said “the problem is you can’t remove policies that work and replace them with no policies whatsoever.”
That means everyone needs to stop worrying about whether there is a crisis occurring. Instead, people need to engage in action, Del Cueto believes.
“I think people need to work together and understand… let’s figure out what needs to be done, let’s figure out from past policies what works,” he said. “Let’s think of what we need to do to make sure that our Nation’s borders are secured because it doesn’t affect just one side of the aisle.”
Del Cueto reminded Harris that there have been other past surges of undocumented immigrants which also concerned people at that time.
“But now, whether they want to use the word crisis or they don’t want to use the word crisis I don’t think it matters,” he explained. “At the end of the day there is a huge surge of individuals that are coming into the state.”
