‘We’re Going to Be Finding Bodies’: Local Officials, Advocates Say Border Patrol Is Dropping Immigrants in ‘Basically the Middle of Nowhere’ – By Colin Kalmbacher (Law and Crime) / Mar 27 2021
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is currently dropping newly arriving immigrant families into tiny desert towns without the necessary resources or infrastructure to care for them, several Arizona television stations have reported. Earlier this week, Gila Bend, Ariz., a community with a population hovering just around 2,000 residents, unanimously a declared a state of emergency in response to the CBP’s most recent alleged activity. On Monday night, 16 immigrants from Venezuela and Chile were dropped off in the middle of a local park. Each family had children with them.
According to local CBS affiliate KPHO-TV, the solitary desert drop-offs are nothing new and appear to be increasing apace as part of an intentional effort. Officials there say it’s cruel and have offered macabre predictions about the results of that policy.
“To drop people in basically the middle of nowhere, it’s 30 miles to the next type of town, and that’s 30 miles of open desert,” Mayor Chris Riggs told the station. “So especially come July and August, we’re going to be finding bodies.”
