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It’s official – San Diego is the new ground zero for the border crisis in the US, seeing the most migrant apprehensions of anywhere else last month.
At least 37,370 migrants entered the US through the San Diego sector, which includes all of Southern California except for El Centro on the Arizona state line, according to the US Border Patrol.
In April, the San Diego region surpassed Tucson, which had been the nation’s busiest, and fell to second with 31,219 border encounters.
El Paso sector, which includes the West Texas city and all of New Mexico, rose to third with 30,393.
San Diego’s rise as the number one border hot spot had been expected, as the area had been getting bombarded with as many as 6,000-8,000 border crossers a week in the last few months.
‘Unfortunately, I’m not surprised,’ San Diego County Commissioner Jim Desmond told DailyMail.com last month.
‘Texas is clamping down and other areas are clamping down. Here in California, they’re allowed to walk in unimpeded. They’re going to follow the path of least resistance, and the least resistance is in California.’
In fact, the Del Rio Sector, which includes the Texas city by the same name and Eagle Pass, had long been the top spot in the entire nation since 2021.
In January, Texas’ governor cracked down illegal crossings by seizing a park that was known as the place for migrants to enter through.
Gov. Greg Abbott also kicked Border Patrol agents out of the land, claiming the federal government was doing enough to stop migrants from coming in.
While Abbott’s actions are credited for the shift, drug cartels have more influence on where migrants cross.
A $13 billion business of trafficking humans from Mexico into the US has been described as whac-a-mole by border experts- where one area flares up as others quiet down.
Since February, the Mexican government has also stepped up its efforts to keep migrants in Mexico before they can ever reach the US.
That has resulted in lower border crossings than normal across the entire international boundary.
In April, 247,837 migrants entered the US illegally, compared to previous months which saw over 300,000 crossings.
Migrants who are arrested in San Diego sector are vetted by US Border Patrol are being released onto the streets.
The county migrant shelter closed a few months back, after local leaders decided they did not want to the $18 million dollars a year to keep running it.
‘It was costing us, at that point in time, about $1.5 million a month to basically be their travel agent. Border Patrol was their Uber, bringing them to those drop off areas, and then we were their travel agent,’ Desmond quipped.
Without the local shelter, migrants are either being let loose at a transit station or at the airport by the feds.
‘The biggest burden here lately has been our airport. Luckily a lot of them are flying to other parts of the country, but we’re a tourist community. People coming to San Diego, they see all the people sleeping there. It looks bad,’ the commissioner added.
‘We just can’t sustain it; we can’t manage the numbers that are coming here.’
Migrants have been known to spend as many as five days crashing at the airport while they wait for a flight out of town, Desmond added.
Like other border communities across the country, San Diego’s airport does not add extra flights simply because there’s a spike in migrant crossings.
Often times, there aren’t available seat to fly out or migrants, with limited means, wait a day or two until ticket prices drop and they can afford to travel to their final destination.
Last month, an image of a migrant sleeping underneath restroom sinks at the airport was shared by a local conservative talk show host.
‘My photo at San Diego International Airport this morning. Men’s restroom near TSA, gates 5-10 in Terminal One. Homeless transient or “asylum seeker” asleep under sinks next to urinals. Common all over with surge in migrants dumped in SD,’ tweeted Mark Larson.
However, the county has been promised $20 million by the Biden to open up a shelter in the coming weeks.