In the last few months, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of people attempting to cross the U.S. Border. In fact, Border Patrol has seen a 150% increase in encounters this year compared to the same period last year. With this steep increase has come a new tactic used by both migrants and drug smugglers alike to evade capture by Border Patrol agents. Acting deputy chief patrol agent Sabri Dikman described this new tactic, referred to as “swarming.” She stated that “instead of years gone by where we’d have a group of 20, a group of 30 crossing the border, currently we see 10 groups of two, so what happens is they split up, they cross the border, and it takes two agents or one agent to address each one of those individual groups so we become task-saturated.”
To further complicate matters, migrants and smugglers have now started to come over dressed in camoflauge and are using boots made from sections of carpet to make footprints harder to detect. This sudden change in tactics has led to over 60,000 “get-aways”, or in other words, people who have been spotted by Border Patrol cameras but have not been captured. Despite the increased “success” of evading Border Patrol agents, the Arizona-Mexico border remains one of the deadliest locations in the country for those wishing to cross. Just this last January, deaths near the Arizona border hit a 10-year high which can likely be attributed to the previous summer’s record heat in 2020.
The reasons for the sudden influx in people attempting to illegally cross the border are not entirely clear. Through interviews with those they have arrested, Border Patrol agents have learned that many people are being misled to believe that U.S. law and Border Patrol operations have changed in some way under the new Presidential Administration. Smugglers have now taken advantage of these misconceptions, lying to people about how they will be recieved by authorities at the U.S. Border. Despite this, the mission of U.S. Border Patrol has remained unchanged. “The laws for immigration have not changed, so our job has not changed . . . We’re still enforcing the same laws we have been enforcing for many years.”
If you need help with your immigration needs, the CIMA Law Group in Phoenix, Arizona is more than equipped to answer your questions and provide help.
Sources:
CIMA Law Group Blog 