Illegal Aliens Overwhelming Arizona Border City: Locals

U.S. Border Patrol agents check for identification of immigrants as they wait to be processed after crossing the border from Mexico in Yuma, Ariz., on June 22, 2022. (Qian Weizhong/VCG/Getty Images)

The Biden administration’s lax border policies are resulting in the Arizona border city of Yuma being pushed to the brink of collapse as it deals with a massive surge in illegal immigrants, with the region’s critical food production coming under threat, a local official said.

“Policies need to be changed when you see an unprecedented amount of people coming across the border that even supersedes what we saw under any of the other presidents for the past 30 years,” Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines told Fox News. “They’re coming because they said that Biden told them to come, that we have an open border.”

According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), roughly 5 million illegal immigrants have crossed over the southern border since President Joe Biden took office. Between 2021 and 2022, there has been a 171 percent surge in crossings in Yuma, Arizona.

The city of Yuma, located in Yuma County, Arizona, has a population of about 97,000 according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. With surging migrant numbers, the city’s food security is being threatened, while its basic infrastructure like food banks and hospitals are also under stress.

Hank Auza, a fifth-generation farmer, told Fox News that he expects a couple of big waves of migrants coming into Yuma soon, which could “overwhelm the system.”

Affecting Crop Production

Alex Muller, president of Pasquinelli Produce Company, said the border crisis is negatively affecting America’s food supply as illegal migrants are damaging crops when they unlawfully cross over into the United States.

Roughly 90 percent of America’s supply of romaine and iceberg lettuce is grown in Yuma, with the region’s farmers delivering about 9 billion servings of leafy greens each year. This produce is now under threat from illegal migrants.

Muller told Fox News that illegal migrants are crossing through the company’s fields near the border, and because of the risk of foodborne illness and contamination, the crops have to be destroyed.

“This is our livelihood, and we’re very proud of what we do,“ he said in the interview. ”It is farming. We don’t have control over the weather. There’s a lot of things we don’t have control over, but what we do have control over is the people who enter the field, the food safety situations—we have control over those things, and it would be helpful if we could get some help from the government in terms of keeping the border a little more secure.”

Securing Border Wall, Cartel Activity

On Jan. 6, CBP announced that it would start plugging the holes in the border wall in Yuma.

“The City of Yuma and Border Patrol agents expressed the challenges the barrier gaps presented as they worked around the clock to secure the border and keep communities safe,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said in a Jan. 19 press release. “It’s why I’m glad that our calls to close these border barrier gaps in Yuma have been heard and construction has finally started. I'll keep working to ensure that construction is completed quickly.”

Mexican cartels are highly active in the border regions and collected an estimated $13 billion in profits in 2022, up from $500 million in 2018, The New York Times reported.

According to CBP, more than 100 known or suspected terrorists were arrested along the southern border in 2022, which is far higher than the 26 arrests made in the previous five years combined.