Migrant crisis leads to stress within Border Patrol

 

By Pippa Fung

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PHOENIX -- As over two million migrants crossed over the southern border in 2023, Border Patrol has seen many changes in its day-to-day operations, unintentionally affecting migrants and Border Patrol agents in return.

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Many border operations do not have the resources or staff available to accommodate for the current number of border crossings. Because of this, Border Patrol duties, which typically consist of surveillance and facilitating the flow of people and goods across the border, have also expanded to involve interviewing and processing migrants through detention. However, without enough trained employees to file migrants into the asylum system, conditions at the border are often harsh and not ideal for either Border patrol agents or migrants.

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One BORTAC agent said that Tucson, where he is stationed, was suffering especially because it is a smaller processing point whose facilities were not meant to be permanent.

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"At the end of the day," he explained, "we're not an agency that is equipped to house people long term."

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He added that Border Patrol processing coordinator jobs had been created to alleviate weight from the Border Patrol, but he only ever saw three or four of these people a day, possibly because employers had a difficult time filling these positions.

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This situation has also led to further challenges with cartels, the same BORTAC agent said, as they frequently exploit migrants by taking their documentation and requiring high fees for smuggling them into the country. People who do successfully make it across the border may then be on credit with the cartel for years after. This makes smuggling people more of a lucrative business for them than drugs or weapons. 

 

"These are people just trying to come here for a better life, but the cartels are the ones benefitting from this...and [they] are essentially operating unabated," he said.

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Hillary Walsh, an immigration lawyer in Phoenix, also said that as a result of the tough conditions and the amount of human suffering they see, the burnout rate of immigration lawyers at the border is often high, leaving migrants vulnerable and unable to find help in filing for asylum.

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The BORTAC agent suggested that some of the government's more well-discussed potential solutions -- hiring more Border Patrol agents or putting more funding toward their institution for border security -- might be helpful but in the end would just be "putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound" until they can find a way to deal with the root problems of these changes, which are the issues that prompt migrants to flee from their home countries.

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Greer Millard, who works for the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, agreed, saying that federal policy changes would not properly help migrants who need a better place to live but cannot begin to file for asylum without aid.

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"Neither of the political parties is really on the same page as [the Florence Project] in terms of how we'd like to see border management proceed," she said.