Chief Patrol Agent Justin De La Torre mentioned ’the message is out’ to not enter the USA illegally.
Unlawful immigrant rescues and deaths within the U.S. Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector are down almost 80 p.c in comparison with the identical time final 12 months, Customs and Border Safety (CBP) officers introduced on April 25.
Yuma Sector Chief Patrol Agent Justin De La Torre instructed reporters at a press briefing in Yuma, Arizona, that for fiscal 12 months 2025, his brokers have thus far carried out 19 rescues and recorded one demise.
That’s a couple of 79 p.c drop from the 89 rescues and 6 deaths brokers recorded over the identical interval final 12 months.
“The individuals who beforehand have been coming right here for financial causes, we consider the message is out that this isn’t the way in which to cross, as a result of we’ve seen such a drastic discount within the variety of folks crossing for these causes,” De La Torre mentioned.
He attributed that change to at least one main coverage reversal: the tip of the so-called “catch-and-release” coverage.
“We’re not releasing folks after arresting them into the USA earlier than the adjudication of their immigration listening to,” De La Torre mentioned.
As for the lower in deaths, De La Torre attributed that to CBP’s Lacking Migrant Program, launched in 2017, which he described as a “technology-based intervention program that improves the possibility of survival for these misplaced within the desert.”
He famous that the Yuma Sector has 24 rescue beacons and 124 rescue indicators scattered all through the desert that show the viewer’s coordinates and directions for calling 911 for assist.
Whereas the variety of unlawful crossings has considerably decreased, De La Torre mentioned his brokers have been nonetheless seeing folks—largely single adults with felony information—making an attempt to enter unlawfully “by means of distant and harmful terrain.”
To these people, he issued a warning: “It’s nonetheless not value your life to be smuggled in by the felony organizations. It’s not value shedding your life or being subjected to exploitation to come back to the USA.”
The press briefing included officers from Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru.
Juan Pablo Valdivieso, ambassador and consul basic of Ecuador, confused the significance of transnational cooperation to thwart the felony organizations which can be trafficking folks and medicines all through the Western Hemisphere.
Valdivieso famous that simply 15 days prior, the Ecuadorian authorities incinerated 340 tons of cocaine that had been seized over the last few months.
Drug trafficking, he mentioned, brings these felony organizations “some huge cash, greater than we are able to think about.”
He added that the identical might be mentioned for human trafficking, which additionally brings “loads of undergo[ing] to these individuals who danger their lives and to their household that have no idea what’s occurring, what occurred to them.”
Concluding his remarks in Spanish, Valdivieso praised CBP’s Lacking Migrant Program for the lives it has saved—“lives which can be invaluable to their households.”
