Sen. Kyrsten Sinema tours Nogales port of entry as migrants endure dayslong wait nearby

NOGALES — Sen. Kyrsten Sinema toured the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry on Wednesday, several feet away from roughly 100 asylum seekers enduring a dayslong wait to be processed into the building .

Clothes hung on metal poles and benches as a camping tent was propped up on the sidewalk outside of the port of entry. Many asylum seekers, desperate in their efforts to claim a CBP One appointment, have been waiting for more than a week to request asylum without the glitchy mobile app.

Many have been trying to book an appointment for months.

The line has dwindled by about 100 people since it first began in the days after the Title 42 border restriction was lifted May 11. Anywhere from five to 13 people without appointments are processed each day, migrants say.

People in line reflected an increased sense of hope and optimism as they saw others getting admitted and processed. Despite the number of people, the line was calm and orderly.

Sinema, I-Ariz., and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., continued their two-day visit of southern Arizona in Nogales, touring the port of entry and parts of the border wall. Sinema emphasized how Border Patrol agents are too busy processing asylum seekers to fully perform their field duties in intercepting drugs and apprehending people evading detection.

Sinema said that there was an “almost unfettered flow” of drugs coming into the country because agents were being pulled away to process asylum applications.

Sinema erroneously claimed that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Tucson Sector is the only sector along the southern border where more drugs, particularly fentanyl, are interdicted in between ports of entry, instead of at ports.

“One thing we know about the Tucson sector is that this is the only sector of the US-Mexico border where more drugs, fentanyl in particular, are interdicted outside of the ports of entry than at the ports of entry,” Sinema said.

The vast majority of all drugs in CBP’s Tucson Sector, however, are intercepted at ports of entry, according to CBP data.

More than 96% of fentanyl in the Tucson Sector was seized by CBP’s Office of Field Operations at ports of entry so far in fiscal year 2023, per CBP data. More than 78% of all drugs were seized at ports in the Tucson Sector thus far in fiscal year 2023, according to CBP data.

Sinema visits Tucson: Sinema talks to Tucson nonprofits, local leaders about post-Title 42 border situation

The numbers follow nationwide trends where more than 91% of fentanyl intercepted nationwide was seized at ports of entry so far in fiscal year 2023, per CBP data.

Pablo Sierra-Carmona, a spokesperson for Sinema, later clarified that Sinema was referring to a majority of fentanyl being seized by the Drug Enforcement Administration in the interior of the country and not at ports of entry along the border in 2022.

Sinema previously claimed, during a Tucson event on Tuesday, that the amount of fentanyl being smuggled by cartels in between ports of entry in the Tucson Sector exceeds the amount of fentanyl intercepted at ports of entry.

"The amount of fentanyl that's coming in between ports of entry that's being smuggled in by the cartels exceeds what is being caught at the port of entry in the Tucson sector," Sinema said Tuesday.

On May 2, the Biden administration announced that it was sending 1,500 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in order to help Border Patrol agents return to fully conducting their field work. The troops, who were primarily deployed to Texas, were tasked with performing administrative work to free up agents ahead of the lifting of Title 42.

No troops came to Arizona.

The visit is the third time that Sinema has brought a congressional delegation to the Arizona-Mexico border this year. During her remarks, Sinema called for the hiring of more Border Patrol agents and for the completion of the remaining border wall gap projects.

Family endures eight-day wait at port of entry

Edgar Ayala Rodriguez and his family have been waiting outside of the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry for eight days.

The family left their home in Guerrero, Mexico, on May 15 and arrived directly at the port on May 16. The family left because of threats from organized crime.

The southern Mexican state has been plagued with violence for years due to fighting from rival drug cartels. Organized crime has infiltrated the everyday lives of many residents in the state.

If the line didn’t move and Rodriguez couldn’t see any hope in requesting asylum without an appointment, the family would return to Guerrero, he said. With no other place to go, the return to Guerrero would mean starting from scratch as the family had spent their savings on getting to the border.

Initial reporting: 200 asylum seekers in line outside Nogales port of entry days after Title 42's end

The Kino Border Initiative, a binational humanitarian nonprofit, has been providing asylum seekers with breakfast, lunch and mattress pads to sleep on. The migrant shelter has seen lower numbers of people in the days following Title 42’s end, according to Gia Del Pino, communications director for the Kino Border Initiative.

Many migrants are choosing instead to arrive directly to the port of entry and get in line, she added.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema tours Nogales port as migrants line up outside