Border officials cite 1,530,523 migrant encounters over last 12 months, Tucson sector sees largest total

Tucson Sector leads in all in migrant encounters

New data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows that the Tucson Sector leads all other sectors on the southern border in migrant encounters over the last 12 months, although overall the number of encounters in the country has fallen this year.

TUCSON, Ariz. - Staggering numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that the Tucson sector at the U.S.-Mexico border surpassed El Paso as the busiest sector at the southern border over the last 12 months.

The numbers:

Although border encounters are down by 25% year over year, the encounters in the Tucson sector increased by 24.1%, a total of nearly 100,000 more people compared to last year, according to the data.

The total number of encounters in Tucson increased from 373,625 to 463,567.

The Yuma sector, which was closed for a month from Dec. 4 through Jan. 4, saw the steepest decrease percentage wise with a 69.1% drop in encounters.

In Yuma, the total number of encounters dropped from 174,201 to 53,877.

Overall, the number of migrant encounters at the border has dropped by 25% or more than 500,000 people year-over-year across the country.

There have been 1,530,523 total migrant encounters from Oct. 2023 to Sept. 2024, down from 2,045,838 during the same time period a year prior.

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Most of those encounters involve single adults.

Where are the people coming from?

The data also shows the country of citizenship of the migrants tallied with 502,279 coming from Mexico, 195,294 from Guatemala, 111,155 from Honduras and 45,868 from El Salvador.

Another 676,109 people were listed as "Other."

Since June, San Diego has been the busiest sector. Tucson was the busiest every other month except for March.

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