Lukeville Port of Entry to reopen: Here's what to know

The Lukeville-Sonoyta Port of Entry will be reopening Thursday, a month after U.S. Customs and Border Protection shuttered the crossing as a result of increased migrant arrivals on Dec. 4.

Senior Biden administration officials announced Tuesday that the Lukeville border crossing and the Morley Pedestrian Port of Entry in Nogales will reopen Jan. 4. The Lukeville port will reopen at 6 a.m. Thursday while the Morley gate will reopen at 10 a.m., CBP said.

Operations also will resume at the Eagle Pass International Bridge I in Eagle Pass, Texas, and at the San Ysidro Port of Entry Pedestrian West crossing in San Diego.

“CBP will continue to prioritize our border security mission as necessary in response to this evolving situation," the agency announced in a written news release.

"We continue to assess security situations, adjust our operational plans, and deploy resources to maximize enforcement efforts against those noncitizens who do not use lawful pathways or processes – such as scheduling an appointment via CBP One™ – and those without a legal basis to remain in the United States."

CBP closed the Lukeville crossing in order to reassign port officers to help Border Patrol agents process hundreds of migrants arriving in the desert a mile west of the port of entry. The monthlong closure of the Lukeville Port of Entry caused devastating effects on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Border community residents rejoice in port reopening

The port was the main thoroughfare for travelers to reach the popular beach destination of Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, known as Rocky Point. The town has seen "catastrophic" economic effects as a result of the closure.

Businesses in Why and Ajo have seen profits plummet as they're forced to cut hours and let employees go. Family units were separated as residents of border communities were forced to choose between their jobs or their children and others were blocked from easily visiting their once-close family members.

Lucia Gutierrez has been making days-long trips from Sonoyta, Sonora, to Ajo, Arizona, in order to maintain her job. Gutierrez’s once 40-minute commute from Sonoyta to Ajo now takes her anywhere from nine to 12 hours each way.

“These trips have been horrible,” Gutierrez said. “It's really hard to do and be away from home for days at a time.”

She spends roughly three days in Ajo and then returns home to take care of her 92-year-old father living with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Gutierrez, operations manager for Ajo’s Sonoran Desert Inn, has made those trips once a week for the past three weeks.

Now, she will be able to go home every day.

“It's kind of hard for me to believe,” Gutierrez said. “Everyone's happy right now because everybody now can go home and see their families.”

Gutierrez said she was very happy and excited about the reopening of the port.

“I was supposed to be here five days but I get to go home Thursday,” Gutierrez said.

In border deal, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, others want to avoid 'unintended consequences'

Reopening met with relief in Puerto Peñasco

Tuesday’s announcement about the port reopening brought Cindy Lowe to tears as she processed the news and what it meant for her livelihood and for the people she employs at her restaurant in Puerto Peñasco’s city center.

"It means the difference between surviving and not surviving,” Lowe said. "I had all sort of backup plans because we didn’t know. We had no clue what was going to happen. How long this was going to last. We had been making a lot of backup plans, and none of them were good."

Lowe, who moved from Tucson to Puerto Peñasco and opened a restaurant called Ole Mole using her life savings, had to lay off two-thirds of her workers in the days after the Lukeville crossing closed Dec. 4.

“I can bring my people back; my people have kids and they have no jobs and no money and I can’t help them,” she said.

Closed Lukeville border crossing: Puerto Peñasco left facing 'catastrophic' economic impact

Oscar Palacio Soto, the vice president of tourism for the Puerto Peñasco Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the announcement with relief.

Businesses dependent on visitors all over the city had laid off hundreds of people in the past month, he said, and thousands more kept workers on reduced hours.

“It is definitely good news,” he said. “Here, the New Year holiday was calm this year compared to previous years. Most of the business, if not all, cancelled their New Year celebrations.”

Puerto Peñasco typically draws thousands of visitors for the New Year. But with the border closure, and even the U.S. Consulate urging visitors to avoid taking alternate routes, few people made the eight-hour trip.

Palacio Soto said occupancy rates at his resort, Playa Bonita, during the New Year holiday were at 20% this year, compared to 71% one year ago. That was the case everywhere else in the city, with other local businesses also shuttered without any visitors to shop.

“We drove around New Year’s Eve, and this place should’ve been packed, it was so scary,” Lowe said. “It was eerie. There was nobody, nobody was open.”

The reopening of the Lukeville border crossing comes at a crucial time, according to Palacio Soto. Winter visitors, also known as snowbirds, begin to arrive to Puerto Peñasco in greater numbers in mid-January. And because they tend to stay for longer periods of time, they leave a greater impact on businesses in the city.

Closed Lukeville border crossing: Puerto Peñasco left facing 'catastrophic' economic impact

But Palacio Soto said that even though the crossing will reopen later this week, he expects it will take some time for businesses in Puerto Peñasco to fully reopen.

“I think it will take some time. People will wait and see what will happen the first weekend and what happens next,” he said. “That will allow us to monitor the speed by which we get back to normal, which hopefully happens as quickly as possible.”

But while business owners met the announcement with joy and relief, others such as Salvador Cabrales, a Phoenix man who owns a shipyard in Puerto Peñasco, expressed some skepticism about a potential repeat.

“Personally, I do think we have to celebrate this news, but we can’t let our guard down,” he said. “I feel that after the pandemic, when it shut down, and now for a second time, I think it could happen again.”

Congressional leaders, advocates welcome reopening

“During one of the busiest months for cross-border commerce and tourism, our understaffed and under-resourced Border Patrol was forced to close a vital port of entry," Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., said in a written statement.

"Border communities can’t keep paying the price for the federal government’s failures. Congress must come together to pass emergency supplemental funds to hire more officers and surge resources to secure our border.”

Jorge Mendoza Yescas, the consul general of Mexico in Phoenix, said he was pleased with the Biden administration's decision to reopen the Lukeville border crossing.

"The economy of northwest Sonora, which relies to a great extent on Arizona tourism, will be reactivated," Mendoza Yescas said via a WhatsApp text message. "Likewise, people from that region of Sonora who have family and cultural ties, as well as those who travel to (Arizona) for pleasure, will be able again to enter the US where they normally do."

CBP moved more than 100 Office of Field Operations staff, alongside several non-CBP law enforcement personnel, to assist Border Patrol in areas seeing high numbers of migrant encounters along the southwestern border.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is supplying transportation support at locations along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to CBP.

“It’s going to make a world of difference,” said Aaron Cooper, the executive director of the Ajo-based International Sonoran Desert Alliance about the reopening. “There’s definitely going to be an immediate business impact.”

The reopening of the port comes as the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector has remained the busiest corridor for migrant encounters along the U.S.-Mexico border for five months straight. The sector in November logged 64,638 encounters in between ports of entry.

“The closure of the Lukeville Port of Entry accomplished nothing to curb the surge of migrants we’re continuing to see,” Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Instead, it shut down trade, commerce, tourism and travel across the border during one of the busiest times of the year. This action is just another example of how the Biden administration’s misguided policies do nothing to solve the problem but everything to hurt our border communities.”

Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., issued a joint statement late Tuesday criticizing the Biden administration.

"Following our calls, we’re relieved that the Lukeville Port of Entry and Morley Gate are reopening — but in Arizona, we continue to experience the devastating effects of this unacceptable closure and our broken border system," Sinema and Kelly said. "Arizona’s border communities are in crisis — and closing Lukeville and redirecting port officers to help U.S. Border Patrol process migrants due to a broken border system further destabilized our border and disrupted trade and tourism our economy depends on."

The border crossing reopenings don't solve the larger border and immigration problem, they said.

"The longer Congress and the Administration fail to adequately respond, the more we risk future closures and disruptions," Sinema and Kelly continued. "We’re renewing our call for both sides to reject the echo chamber and work with us to make meaningful progress, secure our border, and keep our communities safe."

In response to the closure, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a Dec. 15 executive order, sending members of the National Guard to southern Arizona to help law enforcement agencies with fentanyl interdiction and analytical support.

National Guard members cannot operate the Lukeville port without federal orders.

On Dec. 20, the U.S. Consulate General strongly advised U.S. citizens against traveling to Rocky Point and warned about using alternate routes to reach the tourist destination as the Lukeville Port of Entry remains closed.

The guidance advised people not to travel to Rocky Point until the Lukeville port reopens.

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: Lukeville border news: Here's when port of entry is reopening