Border Patrol Arrests 376 Who Dug Under Barrier in Arizona

January 18, 2019, 9:16 PM

This Jan. 14, 2019, photo released by U.S. customs officials shows some of the 376 Central Americans arrested in Arizona for crossing into the United States illegally. They used holes dug under a barrier to cross in multiple spots about 10 miles east of San Luis, Ariz.

SAN LUIS, ARIZ. —

U.S. authorities said Friday that 376 Central Americans had been arrested in southwest Arizona, the vast majority of them families who dug short, shallow holes under a barrier to cross the border.

The group members dug under a steel barrier in seven spots about 10 miles (16 kilometers) east of a border crossing in San Luis and made no effort to elude immigration agents. There were 176 children in the group.

Nearly all of those in the unusually large group were from Guatemala. They were taken to Yuma after entering the country Monday.

The area became a major corridor for illegal crossings in the mid-2000s, prompting the federal government to weld steel plates to a barrier made of steel bollards that had been designed to stop people in vehicles, not on foot, Border Patrol spokesman Jose Garibay III said. In those spots, there is no concrete footing to prevent digging.

The group used multiple holes in an apparent effort to get everyone across the border quickly, Garibay said.

This Jan. 14, 2019, photo released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows some of the 376 Central Americans the Border Patrol says it arrested, the vast majority of them families who had dug holes to cross into the United States, about 10 miles east of San Luis, Ariz.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection released photos and video of a long line of migrants standing patiently on a desert road's dirt shoulder after they were stopped.

On Wednesday, the Border Patrol arrested 247 people, mostly from Central America, who turned themselves in to agents in a highly remote part of New Mexico, where authorities have found 25 groups of more than 100 people since October. A group of 115 was found in the same area Thursday.

Large numbers of Guatemalan families and unaccompanied children are surrendering to immigration agents in Antelope Wells, N.M., where 7-year-old Jakelin Caal and her father were found Dec. 6 with 161 others.

Caal started vomiting on the bus ride to the nearest Border Patrol station 94 miles (150 kilometers) away and had stopped breathing by the time she arrived. She died at a hospital in El Paso, Texas.

The southwest Arizona desert is less remote but arrests have also sharply increased after years of relative quiet. The Border Patrol's Yuma sector made 7,857 arrests in October and November, more than double the same period a year earlier.

Despite a surge in asylum-seeking families from Central America in recent months, border arrests remain low by historical standards.

The Border Patrol made 396,579 arrests on the Mexican border in fiscal 2018, up 30 percent from a 46-year low during the same period a year earlier but still well below a high of more than 1.6 million in 2000.

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