Lukeville Port of Entry closing: Here's what happened on first day of the shutdown

LUKEVILLE — The Lukeville Port of Entry was largely quiet Monday on the first day of its indefinite shutdown as port officers shifted their efforts to help Border Patrol process hundreds of asylum seekers about a mile away.

The port was mostly desolate with only a busload of schoolchildren breaking the silence Monday afternoon. The children disembarked and seemingly walked through the port into Mexico.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the suspension of northbound and southbound pedestrian and vehicle traffic on Dec. 1. On the first day of the port’s closure, officers with CBP’s Office of Field Operations loaded groups of asylum seekers into vans on Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument land about a mile away from the Lukeville crossing.

Their help was redirected to help process the nearly 1,000 asylum seekers who waited in lines near the border wall Monday. People have been continuously crossing through holes in the border wall before waiting for Border Patrol agents to process them.

Asylum seekers have been waiting in the rugged area for days, some nearly a week, for agents to process and transport them to nearby Border Patrol stations. Food and water is scarce among the group of hundreds as they endure bitterly cold temperatures at night.

The Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector recorded 17,500 migrant encounters in the last week of November, according to John Modlin, chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Sector.

The closing will severely affect cross-border travelers who depend on the remote port to study, shop, work, visit family and receive medical care.

CBP directed people to cross through Nogales or San Luis, two ports that are both more than 100 miles in either direction from Lukeville. The closure of the main thoroughfare to Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, also known as Rocky Point, has drawn uniform opposition from state and congressional leaders.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said that she was “extremely frustrated” with the decision making coming from the Biden administration regarding the country’s southwest border. Hobbs described the closure of the port as a “bad decision” that impacts border security and dampers trade and tourism during a news conference Monday.

“We need the federal government to step up and do its job and secure our border,” Hobbs said. “We're already seeing a huge impact on tourism and trade, and that's one port of entry.”

Lukeville Closure: US port in Arizona closes as border agency struggles with increasing migrant arrivals

Jorge Ivan Pivac Carrillo, mayor of Puerto Peñasco, surveyed the hundreds of migrants in Arizona from Mexico Monday afternoon as he walked along the border wall with the mayors of Sonoyta and Caborca, Sonora. Pivac Carrillo raised concerns about the economic effects the closure has already had on his city.

“It’s had an immediate, grave impact on the economy,” Pivac Carrillo said. “It affects our city a lot.”

Aaron Cooper, the executive director of the Ajo-based International Sonoran Desert Alliance, sent a letter Sunday to President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that raised concerns about the effect of the port’s closure on communities of color in Arizona and Sonora.

Cooper argued that the port represents a “lifeline” for the small, rural border communities that depend on the crossing daily.

“If the Lukeville Port of Entry is closed, jobs will be lost, businesses will fail, kids will withdraw from school, families will be separated and, in all likelihood, people will die due to the increased burden of accessing necessary medical care,” Cooper said in the letter.

The closing will further separate members of the Tohono O’odham Nation, Cooper stated. The Tohono O’odham Nation is already separated by the U.S.-Mexico border and the Lukeville crossing was vital in connecting members south of the border with medical services to the north, Cooper added.

“Closing one of the only remaining points of connectivity among O’odham communities further fractures an already divided O’odham Nation,” Cooper wrote.

Have a news tip or story idea about the border and its communities? Contact the reporter at josecastaneda@arizonarepublic.com or connect with him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @joseicastaneda.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Closed Lukeville Port of Entry quiet as hundreds seek asylum nearby