Looking for Peace, Opportunity, Future

"[We're waiting for] border patrol to come pick us up and give us protection."

"It doesn't matter if it's cold. There is peace here."

Sudanese migrant, Izzeddin, 32, migrant encampment, Sasabe, Arizona

"In terms of migrants per day, December 2023 has been larger than any average we have ever seen."

"Every official who is commenting on it, on all levels, says they're near or past the breaking point."

"If you move to a place that's super remote, there won't be a lot of agents on staff, and that increases your chances of being released into the U.S."

"There is nowhere to put people They can't hold you."

Adam Isacson, migration expert, Washington Office on Latin America

Women wait in a hallway Friday, Dec. 15, 2023, at a Border Patrol station in Ajo, Ariz. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

In a remote, cold and lonely place while awaiting the arrival of border guards, dozens of migrants huddle close to a hole in the border wall. They have been given coffee by aid group No More Deaths. Given blankets, food and emergency telephone calls should there be any there who sustained life-threatening injuries on their journey. Those hailing from Sudan have escaped another Darfur-like conflict, patiently waiting for their search for haven to end far from their homeland.

Among them are others, not only themselves fleeing war in Sudan, but those escaping from Central American violent gangs and Mexican cartels. All have crossed illegally into the United States, trekked over rugged terrain for tiring hours, to arrive near Sasabe, Arizona exhausted, hungry and cold. They wait to turn themselves over to authorities to be given the opportunity to ask for asylum; stranded in the Arizona desert, but hopeful.

Just as night time temperatures begin dropping, a convoy of American Border Patrol agents roll in. The men are loaded into a van where they're briefly processed. The van continues driving in its search for more people needing rescue. "We are not equipped to deal with this. It's a humanitarian disaster", comments Scott Carmon, a Border Patrol watch commander, of the crisis unfolding at the southern U.S. border.

 

A migrant walking along a road shadowed by the steel columns of the separation border between Mexico and Arizona. AP

 

Once again, migrant encounters reach toward record levels, testing the capacity of American law enforcement. Thousands of migrants arrive daily, on their way from Africa, Asia, the Middle East or South America. Relentless violence, desperation, fear and poverty drive them from their places of birth where they can no longer find a future.

There was a broad sigh of relief in the spring when crossings into the U.S. declined after the lifting of pandemic border restrictions. The anticipation was that the floodgates would burst, but they held. More lately, numbers have spiked. The number of apprehensions in a recent week soared to over 10,000 a day -- the Border Patrol found itself stretched beyond capacity. 

 

Small towns on both sides of the border were overwhelmed with people funneled through new routes by human smugglers, to evade capture.

American officials monitored a caravan moving north through Mexico comprised of over 2,000 migrants, heading toward the United States; unlikely to complete their journey according to experts, but drawing significant media notice to the migrant tide crossing the border. What has caused the recent swell is as yet unknown.

Theories include larger numbers of Mexicans fleeing from cartel turf battles; rumours of a key legal pathway ending; smugglers who push desperate people of all nationalities to attempt entry at increasingly remote parts of the vast border. Border officials in Arizona closed a key port of entry to legal crossings early in December to enable them to focus on the unlawful entries.

Migrants huddle around fires for warmth along the U.S.-Mexico border near Lukeville, Arizona. Camilo Montoya-Galvez/CBS News