Human smugglers on the border between Arizona and Mexico taunted a news crew as they used power tools to blow a hole through the wall.
A fleet of SUVs belonging to a cartel pulled up to the border in Lukeville and eight people were escorted out of the vehicles.
Migrants including a family and an elderly man with one leg were assisted through the small gap in the wall by the smugglers.
The leader of the crew, who covered his face and refused to share his name, called NewsNation Border Correspondent Ali Bradley over to speak and began recording her.
The cartel crew were later spotted trying to put another hole through the border fence as they goaded the television crew who were filming them.
Human smugglers on the border between Arizona and Mexico taunted a news crew as they used power tools to blow a hole through the wall
Migrants including a family and an elderly man with one leg were assisted through the small gap in the wall by the smugglers
A family were spotted making their way through a hole in the fence with the help of the smugglers.
The elderly man with one leg clutched onto his walker for support as he squeezed through the small gap, as seen in the striking NewsNation footage.
He was closely followed by a family of five who said they were all from Peru.
A man then called the NewsNation reporter over to speak and said he was not a cartel member or a smuggler even though he was spotted helping people cross the border.
He was asked how much he was paid to smuggle the family into the United States but he refused to answer.
Around two hours later, the cartel crew returned with electric power tools to cut a new hole in the wall.
They used electric saws and drills as well as a generator for the task before they began taunting the television crew.
The smugglers blew kisses and laughed as they continued to cut a hole through the wall.
Eventually Border Patrol were alerted and arrived on the scene and the cartel began to pack up and retreat.
The elderly man with one leg clutched onto his walker for support as he squeezed through the small gap. He was closely followed by a family of five who said they were all from Peru
A man then called the NewsNation reporter over to speak and said he was not a cartel member or a smuggler even though he was spotted helping people cross the border
The smugglers blew kisses and laughed as they continued to cut a hole through the wall
It comes after Arizona Border Patrol revealed it will stop sharing updates on the migrant crisis – despite a ‘demoralizing’ number of illegal crossings.
Chief John R. Modlin, of Tucson, made the statement on Sunday after seeing a record 15,300 illegal crossings last week.
‘In light of the ongoing migration surge, all Tucson Sector Border Patrol social media accounts will be paused until further notice,’ he said.
‘We appreciate your understanding and continued support during this challenging time. Honor First.’
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seen Southwest border encounters increase exponentially every fiscal year. So far this year there have been nearly 2million crossing in the region – a figure that doesn’t include August and September.
Cochise County, Arizona, is being slammed with waves of migrants transported from other counties after crossing the border.
‘The intellectual avoidance and abandonment with intended consequences’ by those leaders in Washington, DC, reference our southern border continues to be a slippery slope for those doing everything we can to protect our quality of life here in Cochise County!’ Sheriff Mark Dannels said.
‘The migrants being released are from outside Cochise County but were bussed to Cochise County, processed and then released,’ Daniels noted in a Facebook post.
‘I applaud the local [Customs and Border Protections] agents and their leadership for doing all they legally can during this on-going crisis.’
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seen Southwest border encounters increase exponentially every fiscal year
So far this year there have been nearly 2million crossing in the region – a figure that doesn’t include August and September
It’s unclear exactly how many migrants the processing facilities in Tucson can accommodate or how many have been transported to other locations such as Cochise County.
The US border has seen a flood of migrants from across the world, not just Central and South American nations such as Venezuela and Mexico. There have been migrants from China and other places entering via the porous southern border.
The 2022 fiscal year saw record-breaking numbers of encounters with migrants at the Southwest border with 2,378,944 reported crossings from October to September.
In 2023 through July there have been 1,973,092 – many of them coming as Title 42 expired.
The jump in crossing has grown in recent years with a mere 458,088 crossing reported in 2020 during the worldwide COVID pandemic.
According to CBP records, Tucson’s field office have filed a record-breaking number of Title 8 inadmissibles in July 2023 with 3,346 migrants being deported and banned from entering the U.S. for at least five years.
An inadmissible is a migrant who misrepresents documents to try and enter the US.