‘A self-made crisis’
Rep. Gosar addresses security, humanitarian issues along yuma border
U.S. Representative Paul Gosar (AZ-4) visited Yuma on Tuesday just days after extending an invitation to President Joe Biden to tour the U.S.-Mexico border in Yuma County, which comprises a portion of Gosar’s legislative district.
According to Gosar, who on Tuesday toured a frequently trafficked section of the border near County 8 ½ Street and the Yuma Levee Road, Yuma is currently “the epicenter” of illegal immigration.
Last Tuesday, a group of 79 Brazilian nationals turned themselves in to Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents after illegally crossing into the U.S.
Then on Friday, according to Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines, agents apprehended 70 illegal immigrants within the course of an hour – 30 near County 8 ½ Street and the Yuma Levee Road, where an opening in the fence allows access to the Morelos Dam on the Colorado River, and 40 near San Luis.
“It’s easy to cross right there (near County 8 1/2 and the Yuma Levee Road),” said Lines. “There really is no barricade; the fence stops to allow for the access of the people controlling the water, but it’s a relatively dry crossing, because the water is so shallow. And it’s right here in the corner of Los Algodones; they can be in the city, they can wait for an
opportune time to cross.”
Lines said the sector has seen an unprecedented influx in Cuban immigrants in recent weeks as well.
“The numbers are staggering,” Gosar said. “This is a self-made crisis. All the Biden administration had to do was go on autopilot and we would be much better off. But they signaled that they were looking at amnesty, they were opening borders and not continuing deterrents, and this is what you get.”
In lieu of enforcing policy, the president awarded an $86 million contract to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to secure hotel rooms near the border to temporarily shelter families placed in immigration proceedings, Fox News reported this week. Gosar said on Tuesday it was announced that these funds would afford lodging for 1,200 immigrants in Arizona and Texas.
“That’s $70,000 per immigrant,” he said.
According to Gosar, the solution lies not in allocating additional funding, but in enforcing – or rather reinforcing – the law, and it requires the president’s support.
“I want President Biden to come and see Yuma for himself so that he understands there is a crisis,” Gosar said. “Yuma is being overwhelmed; it doesn’t have the resources or the manpower to take this on. Regular Americans on the border are taking this hit, and the federal government’s job is to enforce the law. The biggest key is to get back to the rule of law; we’re a country of laws, that’s what made us great and we need to get back to that. And nobody gets past ‘go’ without being subjugated to that law.”
Without an intervention, Gosar said Yuma – and the U.S. at large, as he deems the issue one of national security – will remain stuck in a crisis that serves to enhance “the business model of the cartels.”
According to Gosar, families seeking entry into the U.S. via Mexico often fall prey to the cartels, having their children extorted “to continue servitude in regards to the cartels.”
“Having been to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras and actually talked to families whose children were taken from them, this is a sad state of affairs,” said Gosar. “This is America, where I thought we believed in individual rights, particularly for children and women who are being accessed by the cartels through drug trade as well as human smuggling. But we’ve turned over operational controls to the cartels. They’ve even gotten to the point now where they itemize the inventory of human beings by giving them wristbands, and nobody’s crossing the border without the cartels. That’s a travesty; we’re influencing and supporting human trafficking. It’s a sad state of affairs.”
While the issues bombarding the Yuma Sector are rampant along the majority of the southern border, Gosar said Yuma is unique in the sense that it is relatively isolated from other entities.
“Yuma is out here in the middle of nowhere – small town, doesn’t have the resources to take this onslaught, particularly of children,” he said. “Here at Yuma Sector, they intercepted 11 Iranian nationals (in February) that were, some of them, on the terrorist watch list. This is a national security issue, notwithstanding the human side of it. When you’re not going to honor the rule of law, it’s an open border.”
Speaking of open borders, since mid-February, more than 900 asylum seekers – most of whom are citizens of Cuba and Brazil – have been released along the border in Yuma County while awaiting court dates to determine their immigration status. More than 500 of those released have been transported to shelters in Phoenix, Tucson and California, according to the Yuma Sun archives.
“The majority of people that are given court dates never show up, and that’s part of the problem,” said Lines. “The courts are so backed up, they’re giving them court dates seven to 10 years in the future, and what do they do for those seven to 10 years? They don’t have a social security number, they don’t have the opportunity to work, so if they go and work for somebody maybe they’re being paid substandard, and there are those that would welcome that type of a situation and they’ll clearly take advantage of people that don’t have any additional resources, which is part of our fear.”
Lines, who also serves as chairman of the Yuma Community Food Bank, said he’s concerned that the release of asylum seekers in the area will strip local nonprofits of their resources, as was the case in 2019 when Yuma Sector released asylum seekers by the thousands – 5,400, to be exact.
“The last time we had a crisis like this, we completely depleted our resources,” said Lines. “We had to call in some favors to get additional food on the ground in order to take care of them. It’s extremely sad to see the conditions that they endure to get here, and to see the women and children and what they’ve been subjected to. Especially the children – it’s not their fault, so we absolutely have the responsibility to take care of them and provide some assistance until they can be repatriated or follow due process through the asylum process.”
Lines added that Yuma does not have adequate resources “to stage (asylum seekers), no place to house them, no place to provide hot food. Getting them to a place like Phoenix or Tucson, where they have the resources and facilities to take care of people, is critical.”
Lines clarified that he isn’t anti-immigration; he’s anti-illegal immigration.
“There are people who have come here, waited in line, declared asylum in their home countries and gone through that process,” he said. “It’s actually more expensive to do it illegally, because you have to work through a lot of boundaries and barriers. And if they make it here, they’re not necessarily contributing to anything, because they’re living underneath the radar, which puts them at greater risk, because they have to subject themselves to inferior living conditions because they don’t really exist on the grid – and I just don’t think that that’s fair to their little ones to be subjected to that type of living condition.
As for Gosar, his offer to the president still stands, though Biden still hadn’t given a response as of Tuesday.
“I want to thank the Border Patrol and folks in Yuma for their patience,” Gosar said. “Hang in there. We’re going to keep it in the limelight, because this is an American issue. Stay the course, get back to the rule of law. Talk is cheap; actions speak.”