“The border's got no management right now": Arizona cities discuss surge of migrants
PHOENIX - Top ranking U.S. officials are in Mexico as thousands of migrants head to the southern border. They're meeting with the Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to see what can be done to drive down illegal border crossings.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas both made the trip on December 27.
Obrador says he is willing to help limit the surge, but says he wants to see progress in U.S. relations with Cuba and Venezuela in return.
The Biden administration says it is committed to expanding legal pathways for migrants, but it needs more funding from Congress to do so.
The Dec. 27 meeting comes as migrant encounters at the U.S. border reach unprecedented levels with December on track to break the monthly record.
"The border's got no management right now"
In the last week, more resources, like the Arizona National Guard, have been sent to the border. They're in the vicinity of the Lukeville Port of Entry working with the Department of Public Safety, but local leaders in border cities say it isn't enough.
The mayor of Nogales and the Cochise County sheriff share what they're seeing at the border.
"The border's got no management right now. Let's just be real, let's come out. I know D.C. and the administration is saying that the border is effectively secure and managed. That is an inappropriate statement," said Sheriff Mark Dannels, who adds that it's only getting worse.
"The record number of people coming across the border unhindered, just coming across, standing in line and waiting to be processed, this is like 99.9% of the people are being stamped, processed, and released in the country," he said.
650 buses of migrants have been taken out of the county since May.
"Everything I've seen is not good and what I don't see is engagement, recognition from this administration or Congress. All they keep saying is hey, we need to do this, we need more money for immigration. Well, the border is becoming a money pit. It's truly a money pit why border security and national security is being set aside."
US delegation meeting with Mexico's government for talks on surge of migrants at border
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says he is willing to help, but wants to see progress in U.S. relations with Cuba and Venezuela -- two of the top senders of migrants.
The sheriff says over the last two years, 2,800 people have been booked into the Cochise County Jail for border-related crimes and that number continues to be steady or increase.
"If you just break it down into our geo-population for border crimes, look at that 40 to 44% of all the crime in my jail is border-related. You put that into a patrol function with the Arizona troopers down here, the local police department, the sheriff's office and Border Patrol agents. We don't see a lot of them because they've been reassigned to processing, so we lost that executive branch on the border with us, so we're down here. There's not a day that goes by that we're not dealing with border crimes, border crimes and border crimes."
Over in Nogales, "We're getting the migrants, you know, Border Patrol is releasing anywhere from 700 to 900 a day," said Mayor Jorge Maldonado. "They're not all crossing through Nogales. Through Nogales, we are apprehending anywhere from three to 400. The rest are being bussed in from other places.
He says he hopes the U.S. shuts the valve on allowing migrants the freedom to come down and seek asylum.
"If the U.S. does not do that, then all these migrants will continue to follow what they're doing right now. The moment they realize that they're going to be shipped back, I think not until that moment they're going to realize that they are going to be wasting their money, and they have to go back to where they're coming."
As for what tasks the National Guard is specifically doing, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs' office tells us they are assisting DPS with drug interdiction and human trafficking enforcement.