by In a remote part of the Arizona desert, near a hole in the border wall, dozens of immigrants huddled around wood fires.
After fleeing the war in Sudan, violent gangs in Central America or Mexican cartels, all of the men crossed illegally into the United States, walked on foot through rugged terrain for hours, and arrived at this outpost exhausted, hungry and with cold.
They wanted to surrender to the authorities to ask for asylum, but they were stranded here, kilometers from the nearest town, Sásabe.
Then, as temperatures dropped Tuesday night, a convoy of Border Patrol agents arrived, loaded the men into a van for processing and sped away, searching for more people in need of rescue.
“We are not equipped to deal with this,” said Scott Carmon, Border Patrol surveillance commander, as he surveyed the muddy camp. “It is a humanitarian disaster.”
This is the crisis unfolding at the southern border, as encounters with migrants once again reach record levels and test the ability of U.S. law enforcement to contain an explosion of illegal crossings with far-reaching repercussions for the Biden administration.
Thousands of migrants arrive at the border every day, traveling from the farthest reaches of the world, from Africa to Asia to South America, driven by relentless violence, desperation and poverty.
In May, the Biden administration briefly celebrated as crossings slowed, even after pandemic-era border restrictions were lifted and many feared the floodgates would open. But the numbers have skyrocketed in recent months, prompting strong criticism from both parties and fears within the administration that the issue will harm Democrats’ electoral future.
Last week, the number of apprehensions reached more than 10,000 a day, straining Border Patrol resources and overwhelming small towns on both sides of the border, where people have been funneled by smugglers consolidating new routes. to evade capture by US authorities.
“In terms of migrants per day, December 2023 is higher than any average we have seen,” said Adam Isacson, a migration expert at the Washington Office on Latin America. “Every official commenting on this, at every level, says they are near or beyond breaking point.”
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and other top officials traveled to Mexico on Wednesday to discuss the surge in migration with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as U.S. officials monitored a new caravan of more than 2,000 migrants moving north. across the country to the United States. .
The caravan is unlikely to reach the United States, experts said, but it has drawn significant media attention to the tide of migrants who have already crossed the border en masse.
On Thursday, López Obrador praised the meeting between the two countries and said that President Biden understands that migration “is a social problem and that it cannot be solved with coercive measures alone.”
The Mexican Foreign Ministry said in a statement that both delegations agreed to meet again in Washington in January.
Mexico has been a strong enforcer of U.S. border restrictions, detaining a record number of immigrants this year, government figures show. But in December, the National Immigration Institute, a government agency, suspended deportations of immigrants from the country due to a lack of funding, according to an institute official who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Experts and officials are still figuring out exactly what’s behind the recent migration surge.
Among the leading theories: a greater number of Mexicans who appear to be fleeing turf battles between cartels across the country; rumors about the end of a key legal route that may have caused a rush to cross; and smugglers who have pushed desperate people of all nationalities to try to enter increasingly remote parts of the border.
“If you move to a very remote location, there won’t be many agents on staff and that increases your chances of being released into the United States,” Isacson said. “There is nowhere to put people. “They can’t keep you.”
Izzeddin, a 32-year-old Sudanese migrant, was among a dozen men from his homeland at the Arizona camp on Tuesday. He sipped sugary coffee provided by an aid group, No More Deaths, that has helped keep migrants alive with blankets, food and 911 calls for life-threatening injuries.
“We came here because we need protection,” said Izzeddin, who asked to be identified only by his first name, fearing reprisals against his family.
A civil war in Sudan has forced millions of people from their homes, including these men, who said they lost family members and left loved ones in refugee camps to travel to the United States.
In Sudan, Izzeddin said, “we saw people killed and raped.” He and his companions, he said, were all waiting for one thing: “the border patrol would come pick us up and give us protection.”
Often, immigrants who come to the United States and ask for asylum (protection from political or other persecution in their country) are not actually tested upon arrival. Due to limited capacity to detain people at the border, many are released with a court date for a judge to evaluate their cases. The process can take years.
In Arizona, border officials closed a key port of entry to legal crossings in early December to focus on illegal ones.
Carmon, the Border Patrol’s surveillance commander, called for more resources. “Give us more help, give us FEMA,” he said.
Last week, No More Deaths workers evacuated migrants caught in a storm to a nearby Border Patrol facility, a spokeswoman for the group said.
“If we had a flooded city and people needed to be evacuated, they would drive National Guard trucks, those big cattle trucks, and put our citizens in them,” Carmon said. “I don’t know why they’re not down here helping us transport these people to somewhere safe and warm.”
For Izzeddin, being exposed to the desert elements seemed much safer than staying in Sudan.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s cold,” he said. “There is peace here.”
Hamed Al Aziz and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City.
