Border Patrol in Yuma, Arizona, is spending over $1.2 million on supplies for illegal immigrants in custody, according to the sector’s Border Patrol Chief, Anthony Porvaznik.
“That’s over three days, right, of people being in our custody. And so that’s three meals a day, that’s all the snacks, that’s all hygiene products, that’s all the diapers, it’s all the baby formula, that’s all the baby food. It’s showers,” Border Patrol Chief for the Yuma sector, Anthony Porvaznik, told NTD News on April 17.
“It’s all those things that we have to provide for that community of people that we’re arresting.”
On top of that are the medical costs.
“We have 24/7 medical service providers in both of our facilities in Yuma. And it’s just a huge strain on our resources,” Porvaznik said. “We’re spending over $100,000 a month just in supplies, on all the supplies that I mentioned, which is going to be a little over $1.2 million for the Yuma sector this year alone.”
So far in fiscal 2019, Yuma Sector Border Patrol spent over $1 million dollars on those supplies. Compared with last year, the numbers are skyrocketing. In all of fiscal 2018, the sector spent just over $340,000 on those same items, according to Border Patrol.
For the first half of FY2019, #YumaSector Border Patrol spent over $1 million on humanitarian costs for families and unaccompanied alien children in our custody, compared to $340K+ for all of FY2018. These costs include food, diapers, clothes, baby formula and other items. @CBP pic.twitter.com/Vvz6ro1QaS
— CBP Arizona (@CBPArizona) May 10, 2019
As resources and manpower shift away from border security toward immediate humanitarian needs, Border Patrol says that’s coming at a far greater cost to the nation’s security.
In Yuma, border patrol has taken 50 to 60 percent of manpower away from border security to address the huge numbers of illegal immigrants in custody, according to Porvaznik.
“We have all three of our checkpoints shut down because I don’t have the manpower to run the checkpoints. So we don’t know what is getting through our checkpoints.”
“Last year, in fiscal year 18, we had just under 1,800 pounds of methamphetamine seized at our checkpoints. This year, we’re far below that because we don’t have our checkpoints open all the time,” Porvaznik said.
“So, that’s hundreds and hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine, dangerous drugs getting into the communities all across America, because it doesn’t stay in Yuma. It goes all across America.”
Even as resources shift toward humanitarian needs, border patrol facilities are overflowing and agents have no choice but to directly release huge numbers of illegal immigrants onto the streets.
But now, the agency says Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is quickly losing space to detain single adults illegally crossing the border as well—and those are people trying to evade apprehension.
“My greatest concern is that we will have to begin releasing single adults. We must maintain the ability to deliver consequences,” Chief of United States Border Patrol, Carla Provost, said before Congress on May 8. “Or we will lose control of the border.”
