Lukeville, AZ, checkpoint temporarily closed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection

On Friday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced it was temporarily closing the Lukeville, AZ, checkpoint. CBP said with over 2,000 migrants coming across the Tucson sector daily, it had to redirect all officers who normally help everyday travelers and workers cross the border to now help U.S. Border Patrol process migrants.

“I think all of this can be attributed to a shift in where people are crossing the border,” said Rafael Carranza, Immigration Issues Reporter at The Arizona Republic.

In the past, south Texas used to be the main corridor for people crossing the border to the U.S., but that has now shifted to Arizona, particularly in the southern Arizona / western Pima County area. In the last week of November, 17,000 people were apprehended. This explosive growth is far above what Border Control has capacity for, which has resulted in delays in processing, Carranza said.

Carranza stated that Border Patrol and CBP may describe this as an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ situation simply because of the numbers being seen, which is why there aren’t being resources allocated to handle the processing while keeping the checkpoint open.

“When you have 2,500 on average per day, that takes all of the manpower that you have and that you can get, to be able to pick up the migrants, to then process them and then transport them. It’s kind of a moving puzzle and there’s a lot of bottlenecks that can occur in this situation. But, I think Border Patrol will make the case that even if it’s just a handful of customs officers from this port of entry, any number will be able to help make a difference in terms of speeding up the processing of the migrants coming through,” Carranza said.