Border Patrol Agents Rescue 5-Year-Old Migrant, 4 Others in AZ Desert

A Tucson Sector Border Patrol official tweeted a report that agents rescued a five-year-old child migrant and four others from the Arizona desert. The migrants utilized a rescue beacon to alert the agents of their distress.

Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent Sabri Y. Dikman tweeted a report that his agents responded to a rescue beacon. The Three Points Station agents arrived at the location and found five migrants — including a five-year-old child. The agents rescued the migrants and took them to the station for processing.

Dikman said the sector has 34 such rescue beacons throughout the sector. The agents place the beacons strategically to give migrants a reliable way of signaling for help when they become lost or disabled.

By the end of August, the latest available report from CBP on migrant rescues, Border Patrol agents rescued more than 11,400 migrants. This is more than double the record number of rescues carried out in Fiscal Year 2020 (5,071). FY2020 rescues also represented an increase over the record set in FY2019 when agents rescued more than 4,900 migrants.

Since the beginning of the current fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2020, Tucson Sector agents apprehended more than 173,000 migrants — a 200 percent increase over the previous year-to-date numbers. In August alone, during the peak of the summer months, agents apprehended 16,715 migrants (up 147 percent from the previous August).

The August apprehensions include 13,203 single adults, 1,157 family units, and 2,355 unaccompanied minors. The apprehension of unaccompanied minors in August jumped more than 360 percent over the previous year.