Vital intersection between Mexico and Arizona reopens this week

A remote border crossing in Arizona that was closed last month to help strained immigration authorities deal with a surge of migrants in the nearby desert will reopen this week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday evening.

The agency did not explain why it decided to reopen the border crossing, or say whether there has been a recent shift in daily arrivals of hundreds of migrants who unlawfully slip through holes in the border wall into the deserts before surrendering immigration. authorities.

The border crossing in the small border town of Lukeville, Arizona, was a legal passage between Mexico and the United States that was vital for workers, families and businesses. About 2,000 to 3,000 people headed north each day, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The nearest intersection is several hours away by car.

The closure of the Lukeville border crossing on December 4 had crippled local economies in Arizona towns that rely on a steady stream of tourists traveling south to the Mexican resort of Puerto Peñasco, drawing condemnation from residents and elected officials alike .

Along the way, business at restaurants, gas stations and travel agencies had ground to a halt, and people working and living on either side of the border were cut off from their families. On Tuesday, residents and elected officials in Arizona who had accused the Biden administration of mishandling a crisis greeted the news of the reopening with relief.

When Kari Garcia, 31, heard the border crossing would reopen at 6 a.m. Thursday, she said, “I almost cried. Now I can go home.”

Before the shutdown, Ms. Garcia had been crossing every day from her home in Sonoyta, Mexico, to her job at a hotel in Ajo, Ariz.

During the lockdown, Ms Garcia’s commute increased from 45 minutes to six hours, after she said she was forced to drive two hours west to an intersection and take a loop around it. She said she slept at work in Arizona and only saw her four young children on weekends.

“It’s terrible,” she said.

In addition to reopening the Lukeville port of entry, Customs and Border Protection officials said they would also resume some suspended operations at other border crossings, including allowing pedestrian traffic at the San Ysidro crossing in San Diego and allowing vehicle crossings on an international bridge in Lukeville. Eagle Pass, Texas.

In a rackCustoms and Border Protection said it would continue to “assess security situations, adjust our operational plans and deploy resources to maximize enforcement” against people crossing the border illegally.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, called the reopening “welcome news” but reiterated her criticism of the federal government’s handling of the surge of migrants.

“This closure should not have happened in the first place,” she said in a statement Tuesday evening. “Arizona’s ports of entry are vital to national security and commerce, and it is critical that the federal government sends more resources to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

Ms Hobbs said the federal government’s decision to close the Lukeville border crossing had created a “full-blown crisis” and urged the Biden administration to redeploy National Guard troops in the area to the border to address the to support reopening of the border crossing.

At the national level, the arrival of record numbers of migrants from around the world has not only stressed the capacity of law enforcement at the border, it has also become a humanitarian and political crisis in Chicago, New York and other cities hosting thousands of migrants. a volatile election year issue.

The number of migrants crossing the 260-mile Tucson sector of the border has exploded in recent months, making the area the busiest corner of a 2,000-mile border that is seeing a record number of border crossings. Border authorities reported 119,864 encounters with migrants in the Tucson sector in November, the most of any part of the border and a 158 percent increase from a year ago.

For the past month in Lukeville, hundreds of migrants from South America, India, Mexico and West Africa, who said they were trying to escape violence or poverty, have crossed every day by diving through holes cut in the wall by smugglers. They then walked up the dirt roads until they reached a holding area where they waited for hours or days to be processed by border agents.

Laurie Cantillo, president of Humane Borders, an aid group that provides water to migrants, said the desert around Lukeville had been calmer in recent days. The number of migrants can fluctuate greatly from day to day. She said she was happy to hear the crossing would reopen.

“It was absolutely the right thing,” she said. “Look at all the pain it has caused local communities.”