(NewsNation) — In a new strategy to handle the recent influx of migrants at the southern border, Customs and Border Protection officials are closing some checkpoints in Texas and Arizona to reassign agents to areas that need more support.
In Lukeville, Arizona, a massive group of migrants is waiting to get through and be processed, which hasn’t happened at that checkpoint in the past. While the checkpoint isn’t closed, the capacity has been greatly reduced.
Most of the individuals NewsNation spoke to in Lukeville were from Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania and the Dominican Republic. About 40% are family units, and many say they’re here to work.
One Senegalese migrant told NewsNation he hopes to get asylum and the government will help him.
Another migrant from Guinea says people paid a lot of money and some were even beaten in Mexico trying to reach the border, but he told NewsNation he left because “the system in Guinea is not good for us for now,” adding, “We don’t have a leader.”
Alfa Mahmoud, the Guinean migrant, shared his story with NewsNation, saying he met other migrants on his journey who eventually became a group.
“We met on the road, and most of us, we are Fulani. So like, we understand each other. That’s why we work,” Mahmoud said. “Because she is Fula, I understand her. I know how she feels, and walking from that area, coming to America, she strained a lot. They even stole her passport, beat her. You know, it’s not easy.”
He went on to explain it was difficult to get food in his country, and he faced political persecution. Despite knowing the challenges ahead, Mahmoud says he is not afraid.
“I’m not scared, because, you know, here is the only way I think I can be okay,” he told NewsNation. “If God made for me to be in America today, I’m here. I know America can rescue me.”
Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector are facing many issues. An injunction in the sector makes it so that the Border Patrol has to work to get all the individual migrants out of custody as quickly as possible. The injunction was put into place in 2020 due to the inhumane conditions found at the southern border.
Now, if Tucson Sector agents don’t process and transport migrants in their custody quickly, it risks a sweeping injunction across the southern border.
According to CBP, about 2,800 migrants are crossing into the Tucson Sector every day.
NewsNation estimates there are about 700 people currently waiting to be taken into custody at the Lukeville checkpoint because once Border Patrol receives them, the clock starts ticking.