Migrant surge is being fueled by pseudo-legitimate travel agencies connecting migrants to smugglers, CBP official says

By Rosa Flores, Sara Weisfeldt and Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

(CNN) — The migrant surge overwhelming US-Mexico border authorities is being driven by pseudo-legitimate travel agencies and organized transportation networks that are advertising travel to the US southern border and ultimately connecting migrants to smugglers, according to a US Customs and Border Protection official.

Those smugglers are facilitating the illegal crossings of 500 to 1,000 people at a time, the official said.

“These smugglers are recklessly putting migrants into harm’s way: in remote locations across the border, onto the tops of trains, or into the waters of the Rio Grande River,” Troy A. Miller, CBP’s senior official performing the duties of the commissioner, said in a statement.

One particular nationality is the Senegalese, the CBP official said. Pseudo-legitimate travel agencies emerging in cities like Dakar, the capital of Senegal, advertise visa-free travel to Europe and then to the US, the official said. The so-called travel packages include a connection to smuggling organizations that facilitate movement to the US southern border with the help of large bus lines in Mexico’s northern state of Sonora that operate dozens of buses a day to random spots on the border, according to the official.

Last week, a CNN team in Lukeville, Arizona, witnessed dozens of Senegalese men who had just entered the country illegally and were waiting for transportation to immigration processing.

Earlier this month, CBP announced an effort to crack down on smuggling transportation networks, including “bus and van lines” used to facilitate illegal migration.

“The measures include specific law enforcement operations focused on transportation companies and their employees who are facilitating migrant smuggling activities,” Miller said in a statement issued on December 2.

The result of these illicit efforts by international groups is an unprecedented migrant surge that has overwhelmed US Border Patrol, prompting the federal government to suspend operations at crossings in San Ysidro, California, Lukeville, Arizona, and El Paso and Eagle Pass, Texas.

The closures have allowed the reassignment of 100 port of entry personnel and other law enforcement personnel outside of CBP to the impacted areas. The Bureau of Prisons is also providing transportation support, Miller said.

Border is nearing a ‘breaking point’

The situation at the US-Mexico border is nearing a “breaking point,” current and former Homeland Security officials told CNN, pushing federal resources to their limit.

The arrival of thousands of migrants across the US southern border and the lack of capacity and resources to address them is amount to the type of scenarios US officials once planned for but hoped wouldn’t come to fruition.

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Homeland Security considered multiple scenarios and planned for surges at the border as high as 16,000 to 18,000 arrivals a day, ahead of the lifting of a Covid-era border restriction that officials worried would prompt a surge.

“We could have – and we could sustain – a couple days at 12,000 encounters,” a former Homeland Security official told CNN.

“But the reality is that a sustained flow of 12,000 to 14,000 is what we determined would buckle the system. Anything beyond that started a significant strain of resources and detention. Ultimately, we knew we were surpassing the capabilities of DHS,” the former official said. “It will break.”

What makes this moment uniquely challenging, officials said, is that multiple sectors along the US southern border are overwhelmed, making it more difficult to decompress the areas of the border that are grappling with large groups of migrants.

A Homeland Security official said personnel are being moved around to try to absorb the flow of migrants and thousands of people are waiting to be processed.

Over recent days, more than 10,000 migrants have unlawfully crossed the US-Mexico border daily — numbers not seen since May, days before the lifting of the Covid-era restriction known as Title 42 that allowed authorities to turn back migrants at the border. Border officials contended with a spike of migrant arrivals at the time, though numbers dropped drastically after Title 42 expired.

The nationalities and demographics of migrants have also consistently presented a challenge for authorities because there isn’t enough detention space or repatriation flights for those who don’t qualify for asylum.

This week, there were more than 26,000 migrants in Customs and Border Protection custody — nearly 10,000 people over capacity.

US Border Patrol processed 10,500 migrants who crossed the border unlawfully on Tuesday, according to a Homeland Security official.

In the first 14 days of December, more than 37,000 migrants were apprehended in the Tucson Border Patrol Sector, which includes Lukeville, according to John Modlin, the sector’s chief patrol agent.

Officials cite multiple reasons for the latest surge, including misinformation spread by smugglers and limited resources in Mexico, which the US has generally leaned on for help in stemming the flow of migrants.

While officials say lessons were learned from previous migrant surges, the current situation is straining already-overwhelmed federal resources. Homeland Security officials are pulling in help from agencies within the department and seeking assistance across other federal agencies.

The White House supplemental request sent to Congress in October also included $14 billion for border security, but it remains stalled in Congress.

The CBP official said the agency’s resources can handle about half of the volume of apprehensions it’s currently encountering on the border. Agents are tasked with both establishing security and responding to major medical emergencies, the official said.

“CBP and our federal partners need additional funding from Congress so that we can continue to effectuate consequences for those who do not use the established pathways,” Miller said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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