Border Patrol arrests 4 at camp in ‘staged siege’

PHOENIX — Border Patrol agents swept into a medical camp in the Arizona desert to capture four immigrants, an operation that volunteers on Friday called a “staged military siege” as the U.S. government has vowed a crackdown along the border with Mexico.

As a helicopter circled overhead, 15 trucks and about 30 agents, some armed with long rifles, swarmed into the camp run by No More Deaths/ No Mas Muertes, the organization said.

The group provides refuge and water for migrants, said Catherine Gaffney, a longtime volunteer who was present during the arrests.

“The type of operation they are doing, for me, is unprecedented, and there’s nothing routine about what they did. It wasn’t part of their dayto-day operation. It was a staged military siege on our camp,” Gaffney said.

Gaffney said a camp doctor asked the agency late Thursday morning for more time to treat the men, who had suffered from heat-related illnesses and needed an additional 24 hours of supervised care.

The Border Patrol said talks between agents and camp representatives on gaining access to question the men about their citizenship and legal status failed.

The agency said in a news release Friday evening that it had no recourse but to obtain a search warrant.

The enforcement action comes as President Donald Trump has made securing the border a top priority of his administration, including a signature campaign promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

His presidency has coincided with a dropoff in immigrants crossing the border from Mexico, but immigration authorities have been arresting more people in the country illegally, and doing so in places where they had previously avoided, like courthouses.

“They didn’t need 30 agents to apprehend four sick people,” Gaffney said, adding that the agency’s public relations team filmed the encounter.

The Border Patrol said agents assessed the men on scene and found they were in good health but took them to a local hospital as a precautionary measure.

It said one of the men, identified as Lucindo DiazHernandez, was a convicted drug felon and had been deported previously.