The Border Patrol released 350 migrants onto the streets of a small Arizona border city over the past two weeks, according to a city official, who anticipates that thousands more people could be released by early spring.
The releases on the Arizona-California border with Mexico add to similar instances in South Texas and signify a worsening situation, in which the Biden administration's rescinding of Trump-era policies means tens of thousands of migrants crossing monthly across the 2,000-mile border will be waved into the interior of the United States.
Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls told the Washington Examiner in an interview that the city lacks the resources, manpower, and money to help the hundreds of people who, because Border Patrol lacks space and transportation, cannot be held or taken to Phoenix, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement would normally detain families. Instead, the federal government is releasing families directly into his community, putting the town of 96,000 residents in a predicament.