“The message is out,” Chief Patrol Agent Justin De La Tore said.
Rescue and deaths of illegal immigrants in the Umasector of the Umasector have fallen by nearly 80% compared to the same period last year, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced on April 25th.
Yuma Sector’s chief patrol agent Justin De Latore told reporters at a press conference in Yuma, Arizona.
This is about a 79% drop from 89 rescues and six death agents recorded in the same period last year.
“People who have come here previously for economic reasons have seen such a dramatic decline in the number of people intersecting for these reasons, and I believe there is a message that this is not a way to intersect,” Della Torre said.
He attributed the change to one major policy reversal, the end of the so-called “catch-and-release” policy.
“We are no longer releasing people after arresting them in the United States before their immigration hearing ruling,” de la Torre said.
Regarding the reduction in deaths, Dela Torre attributes it to the CBP’s missing immigration programme launched in 2017. This was described as a “technology-based intervention program that improves the survival potential of people lost in the desert.”
He noted that Yumasector has 24 rescue beacons and 124 rescue signs scattered throughout the desert, displaying viewer coordinates and instructions to help 911.
The number of illegal crossings has dropped significantly, but Della Torre said his agents still see people (mostly adults with criminal history) who have allowed them to enter illegally “through remote and dangerous terrain.”
He issued a warning to those individuals. “Being smuggled into criminal organizations is not worth your life. It’s not worth losing your life or being exposed to exploitation to come to the US.”
The press conference included officials from Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru.
Ecuador’s ambassador and consul general Juan Pablo Bardivieso emphasized the importance of cross-border cooperation to thwart criminal organizations trafficked throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Valdivieso noted just 15 days ago that the Ecuadorian government incinerated 340 tons of cocaine seized over the past few months.
Drug trafficking “has more money than we could imagine” for these criminal organizations, he said.
He added that the same can be said about human trafficking. It added that “it brings a lot of suffering to people who risk their lives and to families who don’t know what is happening or what happened.”
To conclude his statement in Spanish, Bardiviso praised the CBP’s missing immigration program, namely “a life that is incredibly valuable to the family.”
