Chief Patrol Agent Justin De La Torre stated ’the message is out’ to not enter america 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 advised reporters at a press briefing in Yuma, Arizona, that for fiscal 12 months 2025, his brokers have to date performed 19 rescues and recorded one demise.
That’s a few 79 p.c drop from the 89 rescues and 6 deaths brokers recorded over the identical interval final 12 months.
“The individuals who beforehand had been coming right here for financial causes, we imagine 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 individuals crossing for these causes,” De La Torre stated.
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 individuals after arresting them into america earlier than the adjudication of their immigration listening to,” De La Torre stated.
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 prospect 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 stated his brokers had been nonetheless seeing individuals—largely single adults with felony data—trying to enter unlawfully “via 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 dropping your life or being subjected to exploitation to return to america.”
The press briefing included officers from Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru.
Juan Pablo Valdivieso, ambassador and consul basic of Ecuador, careworn the significance of transnational cooperation to thwart the felony organizations which are trafficking individuals 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 stated, brings these felony organizations “some huge cash, greater than we will think about.”
He added that the identical may be stated for human trafficking, which additionally brings “numerous endure[ing] to these individuals who threat 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 are invaluable to their households.”