Border Patrol sees record-high migrant crossings and apprehensions

YUMA, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) - U.S. Border Patrol continues to see record highs of migrants crossing the border. More than 3 million people crossed the border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s latest numbers, surpassing last year’s high of 2 million people. The Border Patrol said this year also saw a record-high number of border apprehensions.

The Regional Center for Border Health in Yuma helps bus some migrants to their sponsors once they’re released from border patrol custody. The CEO of the nonprofit, Amanda Aguirre, said the migrant flow has stabilized in Yuma, but they’ve been helping the Tucson sector. “We’ve been supporting the Tucson sector as well. They’ll call us and ask if we can take a bus from the Tucson sector.”

On average, Aguirre said they help bus 200 to 300 migrants daily to the Phoenix airport. They first started helping with the migrant humanitarian crisis in 2021. “Over 178,000 people that we have since we started working with migrants and responding in a humanitarian way to this migration,” she said.

“Right now we don’t anticipate a surge since it started stabilizing, but we still see six to 5 buses a day and eventually 8 buses,” she said. There were more than 340,000 apprehensions for September alone. As the flow of migrants continues to shift, Aguirre said they’ll continue to stay alert and even work through the holidays to reunite migrants with their sponsors.

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