YUMA, Ariz. — If there’s one lesson that was pounded into the heads of three Wyoming legislators and a state Senate candidate during their trip to the southern border Thursday and Friday, it’s that the situation here has become untenable and seismic for Americans living on the border and the rest of the United States.

All of the legislators said they plan to support legislation that would give money specifically for law enforcement efforts at the border in Arizona. During the last legislative session, $750,000 was earmarked to help Texas with its immigration efforts.

Although this kind of money is a drop in the pond compared to the $19.9 billion U.S. Customs and Border Protection budget, Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines said sometimes just raising awareness about the growing immigration crisis is important.

“I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can making sure the story is being told,” Lines said. “The federal government is not doing its job, the cartels are in control.”

With immigration one of the biggest issues of the 2024 campaign season, more state-level officials like the Wyoming contingent are visiting border towns to see the crisis for themselves.

At the border near Yuma a little after 1:30 a.m. Friday, they witnessed Border Patrol agents detain a group of illegal immigrants who had walked into the United States through a gap in the border wall.

The phrase “every state is a border state” can be hard to conceptualize for people who live far away from the southern border and don’t see what the people of Yuma, Arizona, deal with every day.

Senate District 6 candidate Kim Withers said this is exactly why she made the trip. When going door-to-door for her campaign this summer, she said the issue of illegal immigration came up with surprising frequency with Wyoming voters.

“Of course, the drugs and criminal activity is going to eventually be seeping up to Wyoming,” she said. “I think it’s a real issue I can get behind.”

Withers said she also wants to make sure local law enforcement is fully funded for the increasing pressures they will likely face. She mentioned how the small town of Guernsey, Wyoming, recently lost one of its two police officers because of lack of funding.

“Getting back to the root causes,” said state Rep. Jon Conrad, R-Mountain View. “Showing our support would be demonstrable. This isn’t a Yuma issue, this impacts all of us.”

Escalating Crisis

The southern border has been a problem area for decades, including under former President Donald Trump’s watch, but illegal crossing increased significantly after President Joe Biden took office. After Biden took office, he halted work on Trump’s border wall and has faced increasing political pressure as the immigration crisis continues to grow.

During Biden’s administration so far, there have been more than 8 million encounters with migrants, as well as 1.7 million “getaways,” or illegal immigrants who slip past the Border Patrol and are living in the U.S. without any contact with immigration officials, according to a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Noted in the report is a statement from Tom Homan, former director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who said Biden is the only president ever to “unsecure the border on purpose” and that his “open border polices have created the greatest national security crisis since 9/11.”

Sometimes the impacts of these crossings come in ways that the rest of the world may not consider, Lines said.

“The woman and children are really why I do this,” Lines said.

In addition to the rampant funneling of fentanyl through the border and into America’s communities that’s caused an increase in overdose deaths, there’s also the trafficking of people — specifically children — that’s nearly just as prevalent.

The Mexican crime and drug cartels are becoming more active, bold and dangerous.

‘Total Disregard For People’s Lives’

Lines said he was told by Arizona Republican congressman Andy Biggs that there are around 85,000 missing children in the Office of Refugee Resettlement database.

While touring the Wyoming delegation around the border wall built under the direction of Trump, Lines showed them where the rape of a 10-year-old boy had happened.

“These people are absolute animals, they have total disregard for people’s lives,” he said.

Although many people point to the genuine desire many immigrants have to start new and productive lives in America, he believes that not a single person crosses the border these days without the blessing of the cartels, thereby making themselves indentured servants.

“They have no idea what people are actually doing and submitting themselves to to get here,” he said.

Besides horrible acts like these, Lines said the cartels have also assisted with letting state-sponsored terrorists into the United States from places like Iran.

“Are we going to face another 9/11 because of this?” he questioned.

A former sheriff’s deputy, Rep. Tony Niemec, R-Green River, said he worries about what some of his former co-workers will face in the near future.

Also scattered around the base of the wall were various articles of clothing. Lines explained that these were from people who had discarded them after swimming across the Colorado River to get to America.

At one juncture, the borders of Arizona, California and Mexico convene at the Colorado River. Lines said this convergence point leads to many issues as California authorities have a policy to not assist Border Patrol agents with apprehending people who illegally cross the border.

How It Works

When people are detained at the border, they are documented, but almost always are sent on into the United States as long as they claim asylum from their home country, Lines said. These asylum hearings can take years to take place, to which only about 5% immigrants show up for, he said.

Still, Lines said most of these people are coming to the U.S. with relatively positive intentions and have no problem being detained as they are actively also seeking food and medical assistance.

Withers said she has no issues with immigrants who pursue the legal routes to achieving citizenship.

“If they come in the right way and want to do good work, that’s a good way to do it,” she said. “I’m concerned people are not doing it the right way.”

Facilitating this medical assistance has led to difficult decisions for local health care workers, Lines said, as they have often had to prioritize serving immigrants who recently crossed the border over permanent residents. Despite the community receiving around 200,000 snowbird vacationers per year, he said 85% of the patients at the hospital make an income below the poverty line.

Those who do get through undocumented are doing so strategically and specifically so their presence won’t be known by authorities, Lines said.

“The Border Patrol’s biggest concern is people who don’t want to be detained,” he said. “The people who want to go don’t necessarily want to do that. They want to do us harm.”

Oppositional Forces

Lines sees the Mexican cartels as the root source of most of the border problems.

Combating their efforts is a little like playing whack-a-mole, he said. When a change is made, their only goal is to work around it.

“They’ll just deploy resources somewhere else,” he said.

He also feels frustration with the Biden administration, which he believes doesn’t have a legitimate interest in improving border security.

He said there are countless examples large and small that prove his point. One of the small signs, he said, were cameras installed under Trump at the border that were never turned on by the Biden administration.

Niemec saw the difference in policies between the two administrations showing up in the form of completely different infrastructure and management choices as one of the most eye-opening parts of the trip.

“They call this portion the Trump wall, and it was such an improvement on some of the other legacy portions of this wall,” he said. “Then on this portion, there’s no wall. It looks real secure until you get to the end of it.”

When former Arizona Gov. Greg Ducey started stacking up shipping containers at the border in 2022 in response to Biden’s refusal to continue building Trump’s wall, Lines believes it reduced illegal crossings.

When Biden came to a compromise over restarting construction on the wall due to immigrants drowning in the Colorado River and local tractors being stolen near an opening in the wall, Biden built his own section of metal wall.

Lines said this still wasn’t sufficient to prevent people from trying to get across. There were other locations where Biden installed chicken-wire fences.

Many people argue that walls don’t work as an effective deterrent for people illegally crossing into America. A 2022 study from the conservative-leaning Cato Institute found that Trump’s wall did not reduce crossings after major portions of it were built.

The former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, Lines helped start the Border Security Alliance (BSA) to help pass policy around the nation that he believes will secure the border, but he believes revamping America’s overall immigration system is the ultimate solution. BSA plans to ramp up their efforts for the upcoming election season.

“This is my home, this is my country here,” Lines said of his motivations.

The state legislators and Withers shot ads for their respective reelection campaigns with BSA while at the wall.

Agricultural Shut Downs

Lines also explained how bacterial contamination to local farm fields such as E. coli can lead to drastic consequences for their local economy and the country as the Yuma area produces 93% of the nation’s leafy green vegetables. Some of these lettuce fields come right up to the border wall.

To prevent risks like these, Yuma County has paid to install porta potties around the outside of the border in expectation of the many people who illegally cross.

“It prevents people from walking in the fields,” Lines explained.

Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.