Terror Feared Along US-Mexico Border As Human Misery Rises (Worthy News Investigation)
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
MEXICO CITY/LUKEVILLE (Worthy News) – A key border crossing in a small American town remained closed Sunday as U.S. security forces along the frontiers with Mexico were on alert for explosives amid a massive influx of migrants.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reportedly closed the Lukeville, Arizona, border crossing to redeploy its officers to help agents on the front lines due to fresh security fears.
On December 9, another crossing closed near San Diego for similar reasons. With the Lukeville Port of Entry no longer open, agents have focused on an internal officer safety alert about possible terror.
The memo dated December 13 warns CBP agents to be vigilant as the Mexican military seized 10 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at the border.
Mexican authorities found the IEDs after Tucson border patrol observed gunshots at the U.S.-Mexico border, sources said.
U.S. sources said a cartel gunfight erupted over a gap in the border fence at the ranch that was often used to smuggle drugs through.
However, it is increasingly a magnet for the cartel for human smuggling — and gangs are fighting for control, according to U.S. investigators.
BORDER PATROL
U.S. officials said a Tucson supervisory border patrol agent arrested an armed person on the American side who had “a loaded AK-47 rifle, two loaded AK magazines, loose rounds, and a handgun.”
CBP warned its agents to “exercise extreme caution and should report any possible armed subjects approaching the border with possible explosive devices,” according to the memo leaked to U.S. media.
Yet agents struggled to find possible explosives as the U.S. is overwhelmed by undocumented migrants, data suggested.
They detained more than 500 migrants trying to cross the border into the U.S. daily in this remote area.
And last week on Wednesday, more than 3,000 undocumented migrants crossed in the Tucson sector, which includes Lukeville, officials said.
A day earlier, the United States set a new record with at least over 12,000 migrants crossing over the entire southern border, authorities said.
The previous record for migrants encountered in one day was set at 10,000 in May as migrants rushed the country before the end of the “Title 42” policy, after which the rules for how people would be processed were set to change.
Data shows that the processing centers in the Tucson sector are over their capacity, at more than 130 percent complete. Most migrants arrive from Mexico, Venezuela, and Central America, but many also come from outside the Western Hemisphere, like Senegal.
MANY AGENTS
Mexico’s National Institute of Migration has 35,000 agents, while the U.S. employs 20,000 Border Patrol agents.
The U.S. continues to send funding to Mexico to prevent illegal drugs and “irregular” migration.
However, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says Mexico is under no mandate to take migrants back from the U.S. and has been doing so “as a matter of cooperation.”
In fiscal year 2023, CBP recorded more than 2.4 million encounters at the Southwest border and more than 3.2 million encounters nationwide.
At least 169 individuals on the terrorist watchlist were apprehended attempting to enter the country illegally.
And Republicans complain that “at least 1.7 million known gotaways have evaded apprehension” since the fiscal year 2021, Worthy News learned. It is unclear how many persons were among those “gotaways” on the terror watch list.
With U.S. border agents overwhelmed, Republicans have pushed for increased border security measures to be included in U.S. President Joe Biden’s $106 billion aid package for Israel and wartorn Ukraine.
BIDEN URGING CONGRESS
Biden has urged Congress to approve additional aid, especially for Ukraine, before Christmas, “This cannot wait.”
He added that “Petty, partisan, angry politics can’t get in the way of our responsibility as a leading nation in the world. And literally, the entire world is watching.”
Biden also said he was willing to consider immigration policy changes to secure a deal, but it was unclear whether they would go far enough to receive Republican approval.
While the political standoff in Washington continues, American security forces at the U.S.-Mexico border are left to deal with misery on a massive scale.
In Lukeville, migrants, including desperate women and children, keep coming. Reporters see the effects of their long journey through rugged terrain.
One mother said she had to carry her daughter through the mountains to keep up with her group. Some migrants in thin jackets huddled together and even built fires by a border wall to keep warm as temperatures plunged to 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 Celsius) overnight
“We knew this was going to be hard. We do it for our families,” a man who recently crossed in Lukeville told media.