Arizona County Sheriff Expecting Surge in Human Smuggling, Drug Trafficking With End of Title 42

Illegal immigrants walk across the Rio Grande to surrender to U.S. Border Patrol agents in El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on Dec.13, 2022. Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images

FLORENCE, Ariz.—A southern Arizona county sheriff said he expects illegal U.S.-Mexico border crossings, drug, and human smuggling to increase “exponentially” following the end of Title 42.

“While there is certainly an influx of people, this has been a disaster for a while,” Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb said in an interview with The Epoch Times in Florence, Arizona, on May 10 amid initial field reports of more than 10,000 illegal immigrants entering the U.S. Southern border each day this week.