Page 2 - ARUBA TODAY

A2 UP FRONT
Wednesday 8 august 2018

Despite crackdown, immigrants flowing through Arizona border

By ASTRID GALVAN been largely quiet and
SAN LUIS, Ariz. (AP) — The calm for the past decade.
3-year-old boy with a bowl So far this fiscal year,
haircut and striped shirt si- agents in the Yuma sector
lently clung to his father in have apprehended nearly
the back of a U.S. Border 10,000 families and 4,500
Patrol truck. unaccompanied children,
Their shoes still muddy from a giant increase from just
crossing the border, the fa- seven years ago when they
ther and son had just been arrested only 98 families
apprehended at a canal and 222 unaccompanied
near a border fence in Ari- children.
zona on a muggy night in The Trump administration's
July. Before the father, son policy of separating fami-
and two older children lies did not seem to be
could make it any farther, slowing the flow. The Border
a Border Patrol agent inter- Patrol here apprehended
vened and directed them an average of 30 families
through a large border per day in June, when the
gate. uproar over the policy was
The father handed over at its peak, an increase
documents that showed from May. Yuma is now the
gang members had com- second-busiest sector for
mitted crimes against his family border crossings next
family, one of the ways im- to the Rio Grande Valley in A father and his 3-year-old son are detained in the back of a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol
migrants who seek asylum Texas. vehicle Wednesday, July 18, 2018 in San Luis, Ariz.
try to prove their cases. Af- Agents and border cross- Associated Press
ter a wait, he and his chil- ers here have many things
dren were hauled away in to contend with. Parts of proven to be logistically dif- head of U.S. Customs and sulted in a drastic drop in
a van to be processed at a the border are urban, with ficult for the agency. There Border Protection recently border crossings.
Border Patrol station about fences and canals on the are only so many vans to said are fighting for "every "It's really been a combined
20 miles away in Yuma. U.S. side directly across transport the immigrants to inch" of control of the river effort across the whole
The encounter witnessed from a home's backyard in the sector's processing fa- where migrants are often agency to be able to turn
by The Associated Press il- Mexico. The sector includes cility in Yuma. smuggled in Texas. this sector into something
lustrates how families are Arizona and part of Califor- Many don't understand Randy Capps of the Migra- that is manageable and
still coming into the U.S. nia, along with the Imperial why so many families and tion Policy Institute says it's not somewhere there was
even in the face of daily Sand Dunes and Colorado children from Central noteworthy that most of the 138,000 apprehensions
global headlines about River. America are coming to the border crossers in the Yuma back in 2005," Garibay said.
the Trump administration's While drug smugglers and U.S. through this stretch of sector are Guatemalans. Yuma is an agricultural
zero-tolerance immigration other criminals use the vast Arizona and braving its ex- He said it's possible many hub that relies heavily on
policies. The flow of fami- desert to cross illegally, treme summer heat, when are headed for California immigrant labor to har-
lies from Central America most families and children the more direct path takes and that crossing through vest crops, mainly lettuce
is especially pronounced simply walk or swim across them to the Rio Grande the Yuma area may be the and dates. Hundreds of
in this overlooked stretch of into the U.S. and wait to be Valley in Texas, more than safest and simplest way to Mexican workers cross the
border in Arizona and Cali- arrested, according to Bor- 1,000 miles away. do that. border with special visas
fornia. der Patrol spokesman Jose Garibay said migration They are encountering a to work the fields. Their
The Border Patrol's Yuma Garibay. Many travel in patterns are largely con- section of border that the employers have to pay to
Sector has seen a more large groups, he said. trolled by the cartels that government hails as its gold house and feed them, and
than 120 percent spike in Garibay says he was once smuggle people across. standard for border securi- they earn around $10 an
the number of families and on assignment when he en- The Mexican state of Tam- ty. It was one of the busiest hour. The Yuma area sup-
unaccompanied children countered a group of over aulipas that borders the Rio sectors in the country for plies 90 percent of the na-
caught at the border over 60 families and children. Grande has been experi- years before new fencing, tion's leafy greens for most
the last year, surprising Dealing with large numbers encing extreme violence technology, remote surveil- of the year— a $2.5-billion-
many in an area that had of families and children has by drug cartels that the lance and more agents re- a-year industry. q