A media report revealed that Biden administration officials welded border wall gates open near Lukeville, Arizona. The open gates allow migrants to freely walk through the border wall and into the Arizona desert.
Border Patrol officials admitted responsibility for a decision to weld open flood gates in sections of border wall near Lukeville, the New York Post reported. The admission reportedly came after the agency attempted to blame other federal agencies for the action that allows thousands of migrants to freely cross into what is now the nation’s busiest border sector.
Biden admin opens the border gates in Arizona https://t.co/FnxCKrIQq8
— Bob Price (@BobPriceBBTX) August 23, 2023
The Tucson Sector led the nation in migrant apprehensions in July. The apprehension of nearly 40,000 migrants represents an increase of nearly 136 percent over July 2022. The sector is in second place in year-to-date apprehensions following the arrest of nearly 274,000 migrants — an increase of 59 percent over the same period last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports.
“We thought the agents were going to say something to us,” an Ecuadorian migrant told the Post. “But we just got in.”
A Cuban migrant added, “It was so easy to get into the United States. Nothing like our trip through Mexico. That part was difficult. I thought there was going to be more security.”
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The gates were installed in the border wall construction to allow monsoon-season floodwaters and migratory animals to pass through.
“High water flow combined with excessive sediment and debris buildup can stress or comprise the design integrity of the barrier,” CBP officials told the Post.
However, National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told the New York newspaper that the Mexican cartel human smuggling intelligence apparatus quickly discovers these gaps in the wall and exploits them for profit.
“Because the cartels are constantly surveilling what we do, the moment something gets left open, it gets exploited,” Judd explained. “In this particular case, it exploded almost immediately, which shows you how adept the criminal cartels are at exploiting any weakness at any time that we show them.”
Judd added that the gates “should never open up.”
The New York Post article contains multiple photographs of the welded-open gates and migrants crossing through at will. One photo shows a steel spike in the ground welded to the gate to keep it open.
In June, Tucson Sector agents apprehended an average of 821 migrants daily. In July, that number increased to approximately 1,200 migrants per day. During the first two weeks of August, unofficial Border Patrol numbers obtained by Breitbart Texas show a continued increase to 1,483 migrant apprehensions per day.
Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.