EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Despite a recent uptick in apprehensions on the West Coast, southeastern Arizona continues to lead the nation when it comes to illegal migration coming across from Mexico this fiscal year.
Border Patrol Tucson Sector agents have encountered 373,242 unauthorized migrants this 2024 fiscal year including 31,240 in April, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data through March 31 and April numbers obtained by NewsNation.
The San Diego sector had the most apprehensions in April, with 37,370 in April, but has logged 222,839 encounters in 2024 – 150,000 less than Tucson, data shows. The Del Rio Sector, which includes Eagle Pass, Texas, is third with 204,563 encounters in the fiscal year and El Paso is fourth with 180,738 – including 30,410 in April as reported by NewsNation.
Cochise County (Arizona) Sheriff Mark Dannels says transnational criminal organizations control illegal migration from Mexico and adjust the flows whenever law enforcement in the United States pours resources into any one area.
“Everybody who wears a badge, whether it’s state local or federal will tell you cartels are controlling the traffic coming across the border, whether it’s drugs or trafficking people, which is horrible,” Dannels told Border Report. “It’s a slippery slope. The more pressure Texas puts on the border, the more you see the shift of cartel movement.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sent thousands of state Army National Guard troops and Department of Public Safety troopers to illegal migration hotspots like Del Rio, Eagle Pass and El Paso.
As migrant flows fall in those areas, the traffic shifts. Del Rio, for instance, in late 2021 was dealing with up to 15,000 people coming across the border in the span of a few days. Last month, it processed only 10,275, an average of 342 per day, according to NewsNation.
Illegal migration into the United States is down over the past few months, which some analysts attribute to a crackdown by the Mexican government on foreign nationals trying to make their way north without permits — not to actions taken by Texas.
Dannels says he is concerned more migrants are eluding apprehension when the flow rises and federal law enforcement resources are stretched thin.
When more resources and manpower shift to processing centers addressing migrant crises, that puts a strain on local law enforcement along the border. It also makes it easier not just for migrants but also for drugs to get across undetected, the sheriff said.
“Ports of entry have all the technology, a controlled environment and the staffing, they should have high numbers (of drugs seized). But we’d be remiss to think that meth, fentanyl and all illicit drugs are not coming through the desert areas outside or in between ports of entry,” Dannels said. “We have seen it. We have caught it. We just don’t have the resources out there.”
Border agents in rural Arizona and rural New Mexico routinely report migrant-smuggling attempts that end up with prosecutions – often of American citizens – in federal court. That attests to the corrupting power of the cartels, Dannels said.
“Cartels work on both sides of the border. If we think they’re not on the U.S. side, we’re ignorant to harm; we are going to be harmed if we don’t recognize it and do something about it,” he said.