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Sheriff Mark Dannels in Cochise County, Arizona told The Washington Times that, following the order to halt construction of the border wall with Mexico, the border has been taken over by human traffickers smuggling people into the United States.
Dannels indicated that, although the wall had not been completed, a set of high-speed roads was built for border agents to better patrol. He explained that the smugglers now use these very road to penetrate deeper into the United States.
“We have just built roads for the cartels,” he said.
Stopping the wall was a promise Biden made during his presidential campaign, something he put in place early in his term. To fulfill it, he revoked former President Donald Trump’s declaration of national emergency and froze the money allocated for that purpose under the argument that the whole thing would be reviewed.
This abrupt decision and subsequent work stoppage, in the opinion of the Sheriff, has created a security breach.
“An area that is wide open right now. We’re getting five to six groups a day. It’s almost worse than before. We just built infrastructure for them,” he said.
Growing influx of migrant children
In recent months, a large number of unaccompanied minors have entered the United States, which supports the Sheriff’s statement.
Lawmakers from both parties have spoken out about this, and predict problems due to an increase in these inflows as the order to open the borders to allow migrants to enter comes into effect.
On Tuesday, Texas Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar said on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom that “the number of unaccompanied children and families coming in is increasing every day. In my district, just a couple of days ago, 166 people crossed the border. It’s not a crisis yet, but it’s coming very soon.”
The Border Patrol has arrested about 340 minors crossing the border alone from Mexico every day for the past three weeks.
