Large groups of migrants stop crossing at the Arizona-Mexico border

TUCSON — Large groups of 100 migrants or more have stopped crossing the Arizona-Mexico border as the overall number of apprehensions borderwide has plummeted in the past few months.

Large groups, sometimes with as many as 1,000 migrants, continue to be documented along certain sections of the southwestern U.S. border. The most recent encounter was Aug. 9 in Texas's Rio Grande Valley.

But border agents stationed at the two busiest corridors along Arizona's border, in the desert west of Lukeville and in San Luis, haven't processed a group of more than 100 migrants since early June, the U.S. Border Patrol says.

The decrease in large groups coincides with a massive 63% drop in apprehensions along the Arizona border in a relatively short amount of time. May had the highest number of monthly apprehensions this year at 20,801. July had the lowest: 7,687 apprehensions.

Additionally, July's apprehensions in Arizona of migrant families and minors, who make up the majority of the large groups, were less than a third of what the numbers were at May's peak. 

The large groups have given way to smaller, continuous flows of groups of people seeking out agents to claim asylum in the U.S., according to the Border Patrol.

“So what’s happening is there’s a trickle there, where they are crossing three to four people at a time every hour or so, and doing it that way,” said Pete Bidegain, a special operations supervisor for Border Patrol in Arizona. "As opposed to congregating everyone together and walking them across in a large group."

Is Mexico stopping large groups?

The phenomenon of large groups, which U.S. Customs and Border Protection defines as groups of more than 100 migrants, is not new. But it reached historic proportions this year amid a dramatic increase in the number of migrants, especially families and minors, reaching the U.S.-Mexico border. 

Border Patrol officials expressed concerns in dealing with such large numbers in single groups because it forced them to pull agents from other assignments to help transport and process the migrants.

It would often take several hours, and, in cases with larger groups, days to process the migrants. It also was difficult to find places to temporarily hold large numbers of migrants, especially in areas like Yuma that were already experiencing overcrowding at local facilities.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, does not publish the number of large groups that agents encounter at the border in the same way that it regularly tracks other information such as nationality and family status.

But the Border Patrol in early June announced it had processed "over 180 large groups this fiscal year." By comparison, they encountered a total of 18 groups of migrants larger than 100 people in 2018.

Since June, CBP has issued news releases counting an additional eight groups larger than 100 migrants, mostly along the Texas border and in the remote deserts of New Mexico.

The last large group crossing through the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, which covers two thirds of the Arizona border, was on June 4, when agents processed 134 migrants who had walked around the pedestrian fencing west of the tiny Sasabe port of entry.

Bidegain said officials can't quantify how many large groups agents encountered so far this year. In addition to Sasabe, large groups frequently crossed past vehicle barriers at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument west of Lukeville.

Those vehicle barriers are slated to be replaced with bollard-style fencing later this year, using military funds to pay for the project. 

In the Yuma Sector, which covers the remaining third of the Arizona border, agents haven't processed a large group since late May. Officials there were unable to provide more details. 

Yuma registered a total of 18 groups larger than 100 migrants so far this fiscal year, according to Agent Jose Garibay, the spokesman for the Yuma Sector.

The previous year there was only one such group.

While summer heat in the Arizona desert could partially explain the drop, Garibay said there are other, more determining factors.

"The only reason that we’ve seen this huge drop is because Mexico has deployed their National Guard to stem the flow of illegal migration," he said.

In June, following a potential trade dispute, the Mexican government announced it would deploy more than 21,000 troops to its northern and southern borders to curb illegal immigration through the country.

By the end of June, the number of apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border — a bellwether of migration patterns — decreased for the first time since January. It has continued to decline in July, based on the latest statistics from Customs and Border Protection.

‘Classic human smuggling scenario’

The decrease in large groups of migrants in Arizona has paved the way for a new trend along the Arizona border, according to Border Patrol officials. They describe it as a "classic human smuggling scenario."

Based on information from migrants they've apprehended recently, Bidegain said they have learned that smugglers on the Mexican side will send a migrant family or two across the border, knowing that they will seek out agents and turn themselves in to claim asylum.

Smugglers will then use that as a distraction to pull agents from their assignment and then send others across the border.

"The individuals who are looking to avoid Border Patrol and are looking to be more actively smuggled are single adult males that are not going to qualify for some sort of reprieve, because they’re traveling with a child, or are under the age of 18," he said. "And so because of that, they’re looking to be smuggled in."

Unlike its neighboring sectors, El Paso and Yuma, where the overwhelming majority of migrant apprehensions are families and minors, nearly 68% of all migrants apprehended this year in the Tucson Sector have been single adults.

Have any news tips or story ideas about the U.S.-Mexico border? Reach the reporter at rafael.carranza@arizonarepublic.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RafaelCarranza.

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