/ Modified feb 20, 2019 2:11 p.m.

BP: Apprehensions Down Overall Despite Recent Increase in Families

How the surge in families requesting asylum has strained resources in CBP's El Paso Sector.

This week, Arizona 360 embarked on a journey to continue our coverage of border-related issues. We traveled across state lines to trace the international border through New Mexico and to El Paso, Texas where President Trump held a campaign rally Monday. Our travels took us to the rally, and to communities along the way, where we sought to understand if rhetoric about border security reflects a crisis at the U.S. southern border.


Custom and Border Protection's El Paso Sector covers more than 260 miles of border and also includes all of New Mexico. Of all nine sectors that comprise the southwestern border, the El Paso Sector has seen the largest increase in family units apprehended within the agency's last fiscal year. As of January, agents encountered more than 25,000 family units, representing an increase of nearly 1,600 percent compared to the fiscal year-to-date in January 2018. Lorraine Rivera traveled to sector headquarters to discuss some of the challenges the agency encounters in the region. Spokesperson Joe Romero described a decrease overall in the number of apprehensions within the last decade, but said the recent influx of families has strained resources.

"It takes a little bit more manpower, a lot more hours. But it works in cooperation with us working closely with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]; working with other agencies to ensure that we're able to facilitate all of this," Romero said. "Right now, it's still manageable but it definitely puts more of a strain on what we're doing right now as opposed to what we were doing 10 or 12 years ago."

Romero added that Border Patrol is an apolitical agency focused on enforcing the laws on the books.

"We're always looking for ways to improve what we're doing because whether it's one family that gets away from us, a murderer that gets away from us, a serial killer that gets away from us, somebody will be impacted by that in some way."

Arizona 360
Arizona 360 airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on PBS 6 and Saturdays at 8 p.m. on PBS 6 PLUS. See more from Arizona 360.
By posting comments, you agree to our
AZPM encourages comments, but comments that contain profanity, unrelated information, threats, libel, defamatory statements, obscenities, pornography or that violate the law are not allowed. Comments that promote commercial products or services are not allowed. Comments in violation of this policy will be removed. Continued posting of comments that violate this policy will result in the commenter being banned from the site.

By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.
AZPM is a service of the University of Arizona and our broadcast stations are licensed to the Arizona Board of Regents who hold the trademarks for Arizona Public Media and AZPM. We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples.
The University of Arizona