Behind The Border 'Crisis': More Migrant Families Risk Dangerous Remote Crossings
In a desolate stretch of desert outside Yuma, Ariz., there's a spot where more than 350 migrants and children burrowed under the steel border fence a few weeks ago.
"This only goes down just about probably another foot, this steel," said Anthony Porvaznik, chief patrol agent for the Yuma sector of the Border Patrol. He says smugglers tried digging in more than a dozen different spots, looking for places where the ground was soft enough.
"This is very sandy," Porvaznik said. "It's like that all the way down, and so it was easy to dig."
About once a week, Border Patrol agents come across migrant groups of 100 people or more in some of the most isolated parts of the southwest border. In Arizona, the number of migrant families and children crossing the border more than doubled last year, straining resources in the U.S. and Mexico.
The White House says the situation is evidence of a broader crisis at the southern border. On Friday, the president in order to free up billions of dollars to expand the border wall. The administration wants a total of about $8 billion,
