LUKEVILLE, Ariz. — As migrants wait up to six days to be processed by Border Patrol near Lukeville’s closed port of entry, travelers in San Luis waited two and a half hours to enter Arizona.
Immigration authorities suspended operations in Lukeville as agents are diverted to help process a surge of people illegally crossing to make asylum claims.
Maria De Los Ángeles and her 10-year-old daughter were cold and hungry Monday morning. They had been waiting to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border near Lukeville for two days.
But the Ecuadorians weren’t the only ones.
Nearly 1,200 migrants were waiting around 9 a.m. to be processed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) a mile west of the Lukeville port of entry. That number is an estimate an agent who didn’t want to be identified told 12News.
That same morning, a group of 12 Guatemalan men told 12News they had been waiting six days at the same location.
Families who have children, women, the elderly, and those with injuries are considered "vulnerable," so they are given high priority to be processed first. That makes single adults the largest group that ends up camping the longest along the border wall until it’s their turn.
On Monday, three lines of single adults, each measuring about a quarter of a mile long, were waiting to be processed.
Sometimes single adults are considered "vulnerable" because their health deteriorates as a result of the lack of food and water, or because of the elements after camping in the area for several nights, another Border Patrol agent who didn’t want to be identified told 12News.
CBP wants to process, transport, and sometimes execute removal proceedings for migrants within 36 hours after taking them into custody. That clock starts once agents officially apprehend them.
But immigration personnel said they can’t keep up with the demand. That is resulting in immigrants waiting for days to make an asylum claim in the remote area where they illegally crossed.
To help speed up the process, CBP announced last Friday the nearby port of entry where this large group of people is gathered would suspend operations on Monday.
The agents who normally work at the Lukeville border crossing, where 3,100 people in vehicles and about 200 pedestrians crossed in October, were diverted to assist Border Patrol with transportation and processing the large crowd that grows each day.
“This has been a serious challenge for us,” said Martin Whelan, a Border Patrol in the Tucson sector. “We’re moving resources from all over sector, from all over the southwest border.”
The agency would not release the number of CBP personnel diverted from the port of entry to the desert, but 12News saw several of them helping Border Patrol in various stages of the migrant intake process.
“It’s been a tremendous amount of help,” Whelan said about the added boots on the ground. “We’ve been able to move more people than we have in the past.”
'The biggest challenge is transporting these people'
Immigration officials can only clear 13 people from the border at a time. That’s the number of people that fit in a van that transports migrants from the border wall to a secondary location where the intake process begins.
While 12News was on the ground, a single van would arrive in one hour. At other limited times, several vans made their way to the deserted area.
The rocky and remote terrain has also played a role in delaying the process of clearing out the crowd.
“The biggest challenge is transporting these people,” said Whelan. “This area in particular is going to be the lack of infrastructure and the amount of time it takes for us to respond to an area and then transport those people out.”
Lukeville is a small unincorporated town located in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Pima County. The nearest town is about 30 miles north of the port of entry.
The area where people are turning themselves into immigration authorities is less than a mile west of the border crossing.
It’s a desert landscape with only one winding dirt road that leads from the border wall to where the large crowd is camped, to State Route 85. Migrants are then transported to different parts of the U.S. Where they end up is based on multiple factors, like their nationality.
When a migrant is finally in CBP custody, they are taken to different Border Patrol stations. Either in Ajo, Yuma, Tucson, or El Paso. Travel time can vary from 28 to 500 miles.
The border wall doesn’t stop migrants
The remote terrain is something criminal organizations are capitalizing on, funneling people through this area by cutting through Trump's wall.
At times, only one or two steel bollards are sawed off with power tools, a Border Patrol agent who didn’t want to be identified told 12News. Other times, cartels use chains and vehicles to remove parts of the barrier, the agent added.
That agent told 12News he was assigned to help weld the broken barriers, but only did assignment for eight weeks. The agent said as they worked, people from the Mexican side would taunt them by throwing rocks or gathering in large groups armed. He said they started to add security.
With the open gaps, migrants can hop in from Mexico into Arizona as they attempt to make an asylum claim in the U.S.
Since July, the Tucson sector has been the area that has seen the most people illegally migrating across the southwest border. That month Border Patrol agents encountered 39,215 people.
In October, that number rose to 55,224, a 140% increase from the same time last year, according to CBP data.
The right to seek asylum was incorporated into international law after World War II. Congress adopted key provisions of the Geneva Refugee Convention into U.S. immigration law when it passed the Refugee Act of 1980, the International Rescue Committee said.
Since then, people needed to be on U.S. soil to seek asylum. When COVID-19 hit, former President Donald Trump invoked Title 42, a public health measure meant to stop the spread of the virus. The policy in turn meant people could no longer come to the U.S. and seek asylum.
When the policy ended in May, President Joe Biden’s administration enacted several policies which included a new rule—asylum seekers can only apply for asylum after making an appointment through the CBP One app created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and presenting themselves at a port of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Human rights groups like Amnesty International, have said the mandatory use of the CBP One app “is a clear violation of international human rights law.”
The app has been plagued with issues, like issuing erroneous appointment emails, crashing, and not allowing people to submit photos and other required documents. The app also only issues a small number of appointments for the eight participating ports each day. In some cases, offering less than 1,500 appointments, only accommodating a small number of migrants waiting to make a claim.
The journey to the U.S.
The reasons why people are migrating to the U.S. vary by person. Some are running away from political oppression, dictatorship countries, insecurities, violence, or in search of better economic opportunities.
Leandro Torres left Ecuador after gangs threatened to kill him if he didn’t join them. The 21-year-old made the journey on his own.
“I am threatened because I did not want to accept being in their criminal group,” Torres told 12News. “Where I lived, they are recruiting everyone, I even have friends who accepted and are there. They robbed me twice pretending to be opposing gang groups trying to convince me.”
Gang violence was also the reason that Maria De Los Ángeles and her 10-year-old fled.
“The situation that’s happening in Ecuador is critical,” she said. “Very tough and hard that crime overpowers our countries with no regard to kids, the youth. Times have been difficult.”
The decision to leave New Guinea was life or death for Mohammaomdou Althadiallo. The 23-year-old and his sister traveled largely on foot to reach the U.S.-Mexico border he said.
“Where we are from, we are suffering,” Althadiallo said. “No democracy. They are killing the youth. Then there’s opposition parties. There’s no peace.”
Althadiallo spent four days waiting to be processed by immigration officials. His sister became ill as they waited, he said.
“She’s been sick since yesterday,” he said. “I’ve been telling them, but they tell me they aren’t doctors. They don’t care. If I’m not satisfied here, I should go back to where I came from, but in Mexico, they took all my money. Right now, we're here with no food or water.”
No water or food
The remote location where the large group of migrants had gathered has also made it difficult for humanitarian help to reach them.
Most of the people 12News spoke to said they had run out of food and water. Some of them only eat one small snack a day, oftentimes given to them by other migrants or handed to them by Humane Borders, a humanitarian group that provides aid to those migrating.
“We’re just trying to keep them wet and hydrated,” said Dan Abbott, a Phoenix volunteer with the group. “We’re also giving them limited amounts of food, some of them haven’t had food for quite a while.”
Abbott said the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument were invited to come out and lend a hand. But the job hasn’t been easy.
At the main camp area near the U.S.-Mexico border where migrants wait to be taken into custody, the group had initially set up two tents and two water barrels. Over months, that became a central point for people to turn themselves in.
While the group has set up more water stations along the wall, the water barrels at the main camp quickly run out. Then, on top of the area being remote, volunteers must travel long distances to get water through wells or at the nearby town.
While the group had to make multiple trips to keep up with the demand, people on the Mexican side are providing similar help, but for a cost.
12News crews saw multiple people delivering water, restaurant food, sodas, and even baby wipes to a handful of people who could afford the service.
A group of Ecuadorians said a burrito smaller than the size of their palm cost them $15. But when they handed the person a $20 bill to pay, they didn’t get their change. Some of them shared the burrito.
Abbott said they’ve encountered people who were sick after not having food or water for days.
“We had one man whose oxygen content was down to 70, which is just what it is before you die,” the humanitarian volunteer said. “We were able to get the medic from Humane Borders out, so they were able to help.”
In another instance, Abbott said migrants told them a child had been born on the wall. CBP would only confirm a pregnant woman was life-flighted to Phoenix.
Economic impact of the closure
While Lukeville’s port of entry will have suspended operations until further notice, travelers have two options to make it into the U.S.—travel three hours east to one of two border crossings in Nogales or drive two hours west to San Luis.
On Monday, the day of the closure, wait times to cross into Arizona doubled their average time in San Luis. Travelers had to wait two to two and a half hours. Wait times in both DeConcini and Mariposa ports in Nogales were largely below the hour average.
As traffic is diverted away from Lukeville, towns north of the closed port of entry will be faced with a negative economic impact.
“We’ve seen a decrease by probably half in business,” Christopher Clousc told 12News hours after the closure went into effect. “With such short notice, we haven’t had time to really prepare.”
Clousc works at the Chevron gas station in Why, Arizona, about 30 miles north of the border crossing that leads to the popular beach town, of Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point.
Their store depends heavily on that traffic. The lack of it means they might have to cut hours for their employees and hours of operation.
They were in the process of adding a new restaurant with burgers, pizza, and chicken wings at the store, hoping to expand their business, but after Monday, it’s unclear if it’ll bring enough profit with just the local clientele.
“We want to stay open and hopefully the border won’t be closed that long,” Clousc said. “I just hope that we can pull through this and hopefully get the border open again because it affects everybody’s lives out here.”
CBP did not provide details on how long Lukeville’s closure will last.