TEHRAN, Mar 27 - U.S. immigration authorities have temporarily closed highway checkpoints in New Mexico and much of West Texas, as they reassign agents and use the outposts to help process the growing numbers of Central Americans arriving at the Mexican border.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - The checkpoints, located up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the border, are designed to be a final layer of defense against illegal border crossings.
"Because of the volume we are processing wherever space is available," said U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The orange traffic cones used to divert traffic off Interstate 10 into the canopy-covered border checkpoints west of Las Cruces, New Mexico, now block the entrance, signaling to drivers that they don't have to stop. Checkpoints are closed throughout the Border Patrol's El Paso, Texas, sector, which stretches across 268 miles (429 kilometers) of border in Texas and New Mexico.
The unusual move, first reported by Texas Monthly, comes as the Trump administration says the border is in a state of crisis, helping justify the president's decision to declare a national emergency and free up military funds to erect a border wall. CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan will be in El Paso, Texas, Wednesday to discuss "the dramatic increase in illegal crossings."
Arrests on Mexican border jumped to 66,450 in February, up 149 percent from a year earlier, as more Central American families seek asylum. After years of calm, El Paso has quickly emerged as the second-busiest corridor for illegal crossings behind Texas' Rio Grande Valley, with arrests in February about eight times higher than they were a year ago.
March has been even busier. John P. Sanders, Customs and Border Protection's chief operating officer, said Tuesday that the agency was on track to make 100,000 arrests or denials of entry during the month, up about 30 percent from in February and about double the same period last year. Nearly 6 of 10 are arriving as families.
U.S. authorities made more than 4,000 border arrests on Monday alone, Sanders said at a conference in San Antonio.
While arrests are still well below highs of the early 2000s, the surge of families and children has stretched the Border Patrol.
Source: AP
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