SAN LUIS, Ariz.—Law enforcement along Arizona’s largely unguarded southern border with Mexico anticipate a potential surge of illegal entry when the clock strikes midnight on May 11, the official termination date of Title 42. This is despite the deployment of troops to the area.
“To some extent, we knew it was going to happen,” said Marco Santana, a veteran police lieutenant in the San Luis, Arizona, department.
“Our main focus is if these people come in here, they won’t be doing anything illegal. What I mean is criminal [activity] within the community,” Santana said.
Located in Yuma County, San Luis, population 37,333, includes the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) busy port of entry in San Luis, with more than 2.3 million people crossing annually.
Hundreds of illegal crossings already occur each day in and around the unfinished border fence in San Luis, whose construction began during the Trump administration.
The situation has left residents in San Luis feeling apprehensive following reports of potentially thousands of undocumented migrants preparing to make entry from Mexico.
“We’ve already had a surge—continuously. If it gets larger, we could be in big trouble,” said Betty Hayes of Yuma, Arizona. “Not only from the number of people and how to deal with them, just concern how they will deal with them.
“We can only bus so many [but] they don’t want us to bus them because they don’t want us to deal with them.”
The southwestern border dividing the United States and Mexico stretches nearly 2,000 miles across four states, including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
Arizona’s southern border stretches more than 372 miles and includes ports of entry at six locations.
Title 42 went into effect in 2020 during the Trump administration to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other infections at ports of entry in the United States.
However, the law applied to people based on whether they were present in a country with a contagious disease and not their immigration status.
Regional Meetings Held
Meetings between federal and local law enforcement have occurred recently to prepare for a possible large influx of border crossings with the end of Title 42.“We are also preparing for a possible fluctuation,” Tania Pavlak, public information officer with the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office, told The Epoch Times.
Santana said concern among law enforcement at the local and county level is community safety, should a sudden and massive surge of migrants occur.
“I can tell you U.S. Customs’ main focus is to process them and to go inside and then ‘Good luck,’” Santana told The Epoch Times. “You can’t blame the people [for coming], but it comes down to our problems here in the United States.”
“Our main focus in San Luis is our community. They'll do their part as far as processing. Border Patrol will be involved as well, maybe transporting. Each agency is responsible for what they’re dealing with—very specific.”
According to Reuters, an estimated 3,000 people, mostly Venezuelans, are marching northbound for the United States after being detained for months in southern Mexico.
“As far as the different people that might be coming in, you’re looking at people from all over South America—Ecuador, Brazil, people from even Europe, Russians, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, all these different places,” Santana said.
To handle the potential influx, the Biden administration deployed an additional 1,500 military personnel for 90 days to supplement the 2,500 stationed along the southwest border.
“In preparation for the return to Title 8 immigration enforcement, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are implementing sweeping measures with our regional partners to reduce irregular migration, ensure safe, orderly, and efficient processing, and promptly remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” according to a DHS statement announcing additional Department of Defense (DOD) support on the southwest border on May 2.
Late Notice
Arizona border county sheriffs say they only learned about the troop deployment on May 2.“How long have we known [about] May 11, or Title 42 is going to go? We’ve all known that for quite some time. Why are we waiting until days before to get out of this plan?” Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels told Fox10 News.
“Is that a proactive approach, or that a reactive approach, based on the border is already in crisis mode?”
San Luis police spotted two U.S. Army personnel stationed along the border fence in San Luis. One soldier sat in a pickup truck on May 4, watching independent contractors install razor wire and other equipment.
The soldier told Santana, “I don’t know what’s going on [with the deployment]. They told us to be [ready] for more folks, but I don’t know if it’s going to be this area or in Texas.”
Santana said illegal immigration in San Luis is “very complex,” and an understaffed police department is feeling the pressure.
Will there be a surge on May 11?
“It’s definitely a possibility. We don’t know what is going to happen. We speculate it could, and I wouldn’t say I like to use the word speculate. This is like a stop to where they want to go,” Santana said.
“If it goes where we have to defend our citizens, we'll deal with that.”
Hayes said the country can’t sustain waves of illegal immigrants without risking becoming a “third-world country.”
“We can’t handle millions of people—that’s what it comes up to. Our system works on us paying our way and helping people that can’t. But it’s the people who are working and live here. We’re not set up to help the world.”
“There’s no way you can stop a surge of that many people. We’re going to have to process all these people, and the criminals will have a day ride. That’s why I say it’s scary.”
Her husband, Thomas Hayes, said the situation is “already overwhelming.”
“It’s sad, but it is.”
