The southern border crisis is now stretching from the Rio Grande Valley to Arizona as migrants deviate from their usual routes toward Del Rio, Texas and nearby towns by the thousands.
What was initially expected to take weeks is now happening faster than anticipated: Undocumented migrants have reached Arizona. A sudden surge of migrants were seen on Oct. 8 crossing the Colorado River illegally at “The [border] Gap” within Yuma, Ariz.
“Yuma is becoming one of the hardest-hit sectors in the last couple of months,” Daily Caller’s Jorge Ventura, an investigative journalist, told RSBN.
Ventura investigated the Yuma sector as he recently predicted more than 60,000 migrants would be apprehended in the coming weeks, with several of them already getting a head start, according to recent videos published by Ventura.
Jorge revealed, “In August of last year, BP agents only encountered 694 migrants… Compared to August 2021, agents actually encountered over 17,000 just in this one sector,” which is a 2,000 percent spike in illegal and unvetted migration.
Haitians, Nicaraguans, Colombians, Cubans, and even Mexican nationals have already poured through this route.
Ventura indicated the area is known as “The Gap” due to two sections wedged by an enlarged gap between Mexico and the U.S., with the Colorado River flowing in between.
Human smugglers and cartels have not only benefited in cash payments but have also facilitated the crisis by aiding migrants in crossing the river. The body of water is supposed to serve as a deterrent because of potentially dangerous currents in the waters. But due to “The Gap,” it now serves as the final uniting piece allowing migrants to easily travel to overflowing detention facilities on American soil.
Ventura suggested smugglers are “taking advantage” of both lax immigration policies and the existing gap at the border.
“These migrants want to be apprehended and want to be processed by border patrol agents,” suggesting that migrants are aware of the potential detainments but want to go through with them anyways because they know they are then allowed to stay anywhere in the U.S. “Border patrol is gonna come, take down information of them, and then release them into the United States,” Ventura continued.
“We’re still trying to find out how migrants found out about this open border here”, he added.
Colombian and Nicaraguan men Ventura spoke with indicated they didn’t “even think” of crossing under the Trump Administration. They believe this current administration is “more open” and “less racist”, so the trend appears to be a similar tone among illegal migrants, trying to take advantage of the moment to cross. “The time to cross is now”.
Despite imminent warnings from Panama’s Foreign Prime Minister and pleas from Border Patrol agents for additional assistance at the southern border, Joe Biden and his administration have done little to quell the humanitarian crisis that has been unfolding ever since he took office last January.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently issued a statement saying that rather than increasing manpower and control at the southern border, they have instead opted to terminate border barrier contracts in Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley, especially as border patrol needs them now more than ever.
The U.S. and Mexico will be meeting sometime throughout the next week to continue addressing the worsening humanitarian crisis unfolding at the southern border.