A large border city stands in crisis as migrants overwhelm local resources under the Biden administration, according to a Yuma County leader.
Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines shared the concerns in an interview with Fox News on Monday.
“Policies need to be changed when you see an unprecedented amount of people coming across the border that even supersedes what we saw under any of the other presidents for the past 30 years,” Lines said. “And they’re coming because they said that Biden told them to come, that we have an open border.”
Approximately 5 million migrants have crossed the nation’s southern border since President Joe Biden entered office in 2021, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The Yuma Sector has been among the hardest-hit areas, crippling local agencies with hundreds of migrants per week.
In addition to known migrant encounters, an estimated 1.2 million “gotaways” have crossed the southern border during the past two years, though the exact number is unknown.
READ MORE: Report: Biden pressured El Paso mayor not to declare immigration emergency
In December, over 250,000 migrants crossed the border, a record high for the month.
Biden visited the border city of El Paso, Texas, earlier this month in response to calls for him to address the issue. The city had declared a state of emergency after thousands of migrants entered the city in December as below-freezing temperatures threatened lives.
El Paso was forced to pack emergency shelters beyond capacity and even used its airport as a temporary housing location for migrants.
Yuma residents fear their city could be the next to face the impact of high levels of migrants taking over local resources. The city has fewer than 100,000 residents, but the city has experienced more than 6,000 weekly migrant crossings in recent weeks.
Over the past year, the number has soared to over 300,000 migrant crossings in the Yuma Sector, a number higher than the population of the county.
The chairman of the Yuma County Board of Supervisors declared an emergency in December over the ongoing high numbers.
“With the County facing a ‘triple threat’ of COVID-19, Respiratory Syncytial Virus and the flu, and the increasing number of asylum seekers and migrants entering Yuma County from Mexico, local healthcare resources are being stressed,” read the declaration of emergency.
“I don’t see the response I’d like to see from the federal government,” said chairman Tony Reyes. “We keep insisting this is not a local issue. We keep taking care of the problem when they come around and take pictures.”
