Illegal immigration up 22% in New Mexico

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Illegal immigration kept falling in August across the southern border – except in a place where the desert is killing dozens of human beings, border agents are being assaulted and cartels “100 percent” guarantee they will cross you into the United States.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection data published last week shows migrant encounters went up 22 percent in New Mexico, going from 9,087 in July to 11,016 in August.

The portion of the El Paso Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol that runs from Mount Cristo Rey in Sunland Park, New Mexico to the Arizona state line accounted for all but 2,266 of the region’s apprehensions last month. By far, most of the migrants apprehended in August were Mexican nationals, with Guatemalan migrants a distant second, followed by Venezuelan migrants.

Federal officials say encounters in New Mexico typically do not involve asylum-seekers but rather migrants who are actively trying to avoid apprehension. Last week, a border agent trying to apprehend a group of migrants seen coming from Mexico over Mount Cristo Rey got bitten in the face and required medical care.

And on Monday, Border Report witnessed New Mexico State Police and Border Patrol units surround a vehicle along McNutt Road in Sunland Park. A CBP helicopter hovered over the scene as traffic was shut down to one lane going east.

A border law enforcement expert attributed the shift in traffic to transnational drug organizations involved in migrant smuggling adjusting to shifting U.S. asylum policies and routing through more remote areas individuals trying to enter the United States at any cost.

On June 4, the White House issued an executive order banning most asylum-seekers from entering the country between ports of entry until average daily crossings fall below a certain threshold. Many who are not willing to wait months for an online asylum appointment at U.S. ports of entry are placing themselves in the hands of smugglers in Mexico.

“The traffic shifting to New Mexico makes sense since the groups are attempting to evade detection and apprehension and you simply do that where you have less agents,” said Victor M. Manjarrez Jr., a former U.S. Border Patrol chief agent in El Paso and Tucson, Ariz.

He said the 58,038 Border Patrol apprehension reported in August 2024 along the Southwest border is a reduction from the last three years but still higher than most years going back to 2020.

“Let’s put the August 2024 numbers in perspective. We had 47,283 arrests in fiscal year August 2020; 50,684 in August 2019; 37,524 in August 2018; and 22,537 in August 2017,” Manjarrez said. “I am afraid people will be so happy with the reduced (August 2024) number that they will accept this number as a new baseline — which is crazy.”

The migrants who make it over the border wall in New Mexico usually experience one of three outcomes. They will be apprehended by border agents, slip through and be picked up by American contractors hired by Mexican criminal organizations to take them to stash houses, or die in the desert.

On Sept. 13, a smuggling attempt that originated in New Mexico resulted in a Texas Department of Public Safety chase that ended on Interstate 10 and resulted in the capture of Alfonso Guzman Intzin, a Mexican national wanted on homicide charges and failure to appear in court in Lansing, Michigan. It was but one of many chases of smugglers’ vehicles in West El Paso over the past three years.

Earlier this summer, Homeland Security Investigations and the Chihuahua state police reported the rescue of two migrants in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, who had been beaten and burned by smugglers across the border in Juarez so they would pay a ransom. The migrants reported to U.S. authorities that others at the place they had been kept in Mexico also were being tortured and the women raped.

U.S. officials attributed that incident to a transnational criminal organization called La Empresa. Other alleged associates of La Empresa are being prosecuted in U.S. federal district court in connection with migrant stash houses found in Sunland Park.

In July, Border Report found various social media accounts in which Mexican smugglers “100 percent” guaranteed foreign nationals illegal entry into the United States . The smugglers posted testimonies of “satisfied” customers purportedly interviewed in El Paso safe houses.

The smugglers posted videos of associates wielding ladders atop the border wall and then walking along the sand and rock behind Mount Cristo Rey.

Border Report has since learned U.S. authorities are investigating those postings.

The desert west of Sunland Park and Santa Teresa also has claimed dozens of lives this summer — 171 at last count. This prompted CBP to deploy a surveillance aerostat in Santa Teresa capable of spotting migrants in the desert from several miles away.

A volunteer search and rescue group on Monday took Border Report on a tour of the desert near Santa Teresa where they have found 20 sites with human remains that local authorities have not picked up in almost a year.

That would bring up this year’s death toll in the El Paso Sector to nearly 200 migrants.

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