Tucson Sector Border Patrol officials say that Mexican cartels continue to exploit outdated border barriers in Arizona to move their human cargo.
As an example, officials cited an incident on Monday morning where surveillance cameras detected a group of 103 migrants walking through an anti-vehicle post and rail fence that marks the border between Mexico and Arizona west of the Lukeville Port of Entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Officials said the human smugglers frequently utilize this area yards from Mexico’s Federal Highway 2, to drop off their cargo and have them walk into the U.S.
Border Patrol officials dispatched a team of agents from the Ajo Station to the scene of the illicit crossing. The agents apprehended the 103 migrants without incident.
Agents identified the group as 81 Guatemalans and 22 Hondurans. They said the group included 59, eight of those unaccompanied. Officials said the migrants ranged in age from one to 56-years-0ld.
Border Patrol officials report “an alarming surge of large family groups crossing the border illegally at the direction of human smugglers.”
Customs and Border Protection officials stated, “Transnational criminal organizations exploit the vulnerability of family groups with false promises of legal status and encourage dangerous border crossings, placing lives at risk.”
Elsewhere along the southwestern border, agents in the Del Rio Sector recovered the body of a migrant who apparently drowned in the Rio Grande during an illegal border crossing last week. Additionally, agents rescued 17 migrants from the river in one incident and three others in a separate incident — including one 12-year-old boy who had to be revived via CPR after being pulled lifeless from the river.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
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