EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – El Paso continues to lead the nation when it comes to detaining people coming over from Mexico illegally.
The El Paso Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol recorded 2,014 illegal entries in May, followed by Tucson, Arizona, with 1,588 and the Rio Grande Valley Sector of Texas with 1,439. It’s the fourth consecutive month the region stretching from Hudspeth County, Texas, to the New Mexico-Arizona state line reports the most migrant encounters on the Southwestern border.
Most detainees — nationwide as well as in El Paso — involve Mexican citizens. A total of 309 Guatemalan migrants were apprehended in the sector in May, compared with 1,441 Mexican migrants. The remaining 1 percent came from other countries, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
This comes at a time federal authorities report a 93 percent year-to-year decrease in migrant traffic at the Mexican border, with a total of 8,725 apprehensions in May. But smugglers are still active on both sides of the Rio Grande.
“It is true migration has decreased in terms (we don’t see) caravans of people coming in trains,” said Chihuahua Public Safety Director Gilberto Loya. “But it is a phenomenon we continue to see, and we continue to address.”
Chihuahua police recently freed dozens of migrants from Juarez stash houses where smugglers would not let them leave until their relatives paid more money than was agreed upon to take them to the U.S.
“We continue to see migrants held captive. In the past four weeks, we have had three rescues of numerous groups of migrants: One in Juarez, one in the Juarez valley and a last one near the Santa Teresa border crossing,” Loya said at a news conference this week.
On the U.S. side, federal officials last week expressed confidence that military buffer zones established in late April and early May just north of the border wall will keep migrant smuggling to a minimum.
“Our message is: Don’t place yourselves in the hands of smugglers and traffickers. They will take advantage of you, they will lie to you and they cannot guarantee your entry, either legally or illegally,” Border Patrol Interim El Paso Sector Chief Walter N. Slosar said last week. “If you want to come to the United States, look for a lawful way to do it.”