Around 30 unaccompanied minors were smuggled into the U.S. after tunneling beneath the border wall near San Luis, Arizona on Monday together with a group of over 300 Central American migrants who then surrendered themselves to the Border Patrol.
The tunnels – a few feet long – were reportedly dug by smugglers under the steel border fence, letting hundreds of supposed asylum seekers enter the U.S, according to the Customs and Border Protection.
The migrants shortly surrendered to the authorities and requested asylum. The agency said that 179 of the record 376 people who crossed the border illegally were children, with over 30 of them being unaccompanied minors.
This Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 photo released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows some of 376 Central Americans the Border Patrol says it arrested in southwest Arizona, the vast majority of them families, who used short holes dug under a barrier to cross the border in multiple spots about 10 miles east of San Luis, Ariz. The unusually large group was almost entirely from Guatemala.
The group is believed to be the largest one yet to cross the border in a bid to get asylum in the U.S. The agency noted that smugglers often try to transport large groups of people and instruct them to cross the border and voluntarily surrender.
“In my 30 years with the Border Patrol, I have not been part of arresting a group of 376 people,” CBP Yuma Border Sector Chief Anthony Porvaznik told ABC News. “That’s really unheard of.”
In the case of this particular group, since most of the migrants were with their parents, they are supposed to be released into the U.S. while they wait for the government to process their asylum applications – a law many say only encourages illegal immigration.
The Trump administration previously tried to implement a new rule that would ban migrants from requesting asylum if they illegally cross the border in a bid to encourage applying to asylum outside the U.S.
The policy was shot down by a federal judge in November following uproar from Democrats and civil rights organizations.
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