By:  Hadassa Kalatizadeh

New York City’s migrant crisis is far from reaching an end, with a new flood of migrants flooding in weekly.

As reported by the NY Post, as the United States grapples with mass incursions in its Southern borders, setting a new unfortunate record in illegal crossing last week, the Big Apple continues to bear the brunt of the asylum seekers.  Last Tuesday, the US set a new single-day record, with more than 12,000 migrants illegally crossing over the southern border into the country. This has translated into thousands of asylum seekers ending up in New York City, where shelters and services are already way passed capacity.

“We’re in a surge,” City Hall rep Kayla Mamelak told The Post on Sunday. “Any time there are a lot of border crossings, there is a surge in New York City.”  “We expect to see the same high numbers,” Mamelak said, referring to previous flood of migrants entering NYC.  Per the Post, City officials said about 3,600 migrants were processed in NYC the week after Thanksgiving, which is a 40% jump over the 2,600 entering the previous week.  There is no near end in sight with Southern borders severely vulnerable, and border patrol stretched dangerously thin.

Mayor Eric Adams, who has been trying to garner Federal funding to help with the situation, had more bad news, saying last week that despite his desperate pleas for assistance, the Biden administration made no promises for any further aid.  Over 150,000 asylum-seekers have already come to NYC since the spring of 2022, with at least 66,000 still in the city’s care.  The city is grappling with an expected $12 billion cost to process and shelter the asylum seekers.

Many times, it has been the borders at San Diego, CA, near San Ysidro, that are infamous for bleeding in illegal crossers and human smugglers from the Mexican side.  Last week, there was also another culprit.  A remote, typically sleepy border outpost of Lukeville, Ariz. has now become the country’s busiest crossing along the US border with Mexico, federal statistics show.  Per the US Customs and Border Protection, the agency’s Tucson station reported 55,224 crossings since the start of the 2024 federal fiscal year Oct. 1, marking a massive jump compared to the 22,938 people who came over the same time frame in the last fiscal year.

This beat the usually busier Texas cities of El Paso, Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio, which have now lagged behind Tucson since Oct. 1 with 22,107, 32,107, and 38,211 crossings, respectively, per the data.  “This is a humanitarian crisis that is happening in our own back yard,” said Dora Rodriguez, who chairs Humane Borders, a Tucson nonprofit, to The Associated Press. “There are hundreds of people, including infants and children, who are stranded [by smugglers] in remote areas of the desert for days.”

It’s not an accident that the Lukeville crossing is being inundated but rather the work of Mexican gangs, including the Sinaloa cartel, which are targeting sleepy border towns which will be easy to overwhelm, the Post reported.  The town, with limited border patrol agents, makes an easy mark, allowing effortless access into the US.  In response, the CBP has shut down a legal international crossing between Lukeville and Sonoyta, Mexico, in what’s becoming a trend, with a series of official crossings closed by the overwhelmed agency in recent months.