One of the thousands of illegal immigrants who crossed into the U.S. at an overwhelmed part of the southern border in Arizona had warm words for the president of the United States as he hoped to be released into the country.
“I love you Joe Biden, thank you for everything, Joe Biden!” the male African migrant told Fox News in Lukeville, Arizona.
“I’m a good person, I want to be good person here in the United States,” he said.
Both he and another migrant said they are not seeking asylum and instead wanted work and opportunity in the U.S.
“I came here because I want [a] quality life, America is a land of opportunity,” the other migrant, also from Africa, said.
Both were planning on going to New York City, which has seen more than 140,000 migrants since last year and has been forced to cut budgets due to the crisis.
Both the migrants were part of a massive surge of migration into the Tucson Sector in Arizona which has left authorities overwhelmed. Fox News cameras were at the scene in Lukeville, where migrants were camped out in front of the border wall waiting to be processed. The Tucson Sector saw nearly 3,000 encounters in a single day and has seen 17,500 encounters in a single week, the highest weekly total ever recorded.
Of those camped out, there were a large number of Africans from countries Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania, Egypt and elsewhere waiting to be processed and potentially released into the U.S. Others were from the Middle East and Asia.
One man told Fox that he paid $10,000 to a smuggler to travel from Mauritania via Colombia, while a man from Guinea said he was planning to head to New York City if he was released into the U.S.
CBP has been surging resources and personnel to the Tucson Sector — which typically sees less traffic than other sectors like the Rio Grande Valley– and has been focusing on transporting migrants laterally to other parts of the border combined with a greater use of expedited removal as an alternative to them being released into the U.S.
It is the latest part of a years-long migrant crissi that has engulfed the border since 2021, leading to knock-on crises in major cities like New York City, Chicago and elsewhere.
There were more than 2.4 million migrant encounters in FY 23, a new record. September saw a record for encounters at the southern border, while October saw a record for encounters in October — with more than 240,000 encounters border-wide.
Meanwhile in Washington D.C., there are negotiations over an emergency supplemental funding request, which includes $14 billion for border operations. Republicans have demanded it be coupled with restrictions on asylum and the use of parole — a demand at which some Democrats have balked.
Fox News’ Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.
