McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — An international bridge in South Texas will be temporarily closed to vehicular traffic from Mexico starting Monday afternoon, and a border crossing in Arizona will reduce vehicle processing due to surges of migrants in the region, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials announced.
Bridge 1 in Eagle Pass, Texas, will be closed to vehicles starting at 3 p.m. CT, according to a statement by CBP.
At 2 p.m. local time, vehicle processing will be reduced at the border crossing in Lukeville, Arizona.
The closures will be “in order to redirect personnel to assist the U.S. Border Patrol with taking migrants into custody. In response to this influx in encounters, we will continue to surge all available resources to expeditiously and safely process migrants,” CBP said in a statement on Monday.
Bridge 1 in Eagle Pass is the same port of entry that was closed for several weeks starting in late September after thousands of asylum-seekers — most from Venezuela — overwhelmed border officials in the South Texas town across from Piedras Negras, Mexico.
Upwards of 10,000 migrants per day illegally crossed the Rio Grande into Eagle Pass, causing law enforcement to close Bridge 1 so they could process the migrants under Bridge 2.
The closures to vehicular traffic lasted nearly a month and prompted local officials and Mexican authorities to rally federal officials to open the bridge in order to restore trade and commerce and to allow citizens to cross back and forth for medical visits and to see families.
The first bridge closures cost the city at least $500,000 in trade and cargo traffic, Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas Jr., said.
Amerika Garcia-Grewal, an Eagle Pass resident who founded a monthly vigil to honor migrant victims who died in the river, told Border Report that closing the bridge isn’t necessary. She said more federal agents should be brought to the region so that processing of asylum-seekers under Bridge 2 could continue without disruption to traffic at Bridge 1, which is about a mile east.
“If we had a comprehensive immigration mission and strategy where we had a specific number of officers here to process asylum-seekers then this would not happen. So the fact that they’re closing the bridge shows a failure on the part of our federal administration to do their job,” Garcia-Grewal told Border Report on Monday.
The border crossing in Lukeville, Arizona, is not open to pedestrian traffic, according to CBP, but will reduce vehicle processing in Lukeville, Arizona.
The rural port of entry is located in the desert and connects south of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument to the Mexican town of Sonoyta.
The next closest port of entry is in Sasabe, Arizona, which is nearly 170 miles away.
“In response to this influx in encounters, we will continue to surge all available resources to expeditiously and safely process migrants. We will maximize consequences against those without a legal basis to remain in the United States. CBP will continue to prioritize our border security mission as necessary in response to this evolving situation,” CBP said in a statement.
Sandra Sanchez can be reached at [email protected].