LUKEVILLE, AZ — Governor Katie Hobbs is heading to the border amid the closure of Lukeville Port of Entry.
While speaking to reporters at an event Friday, Hobbs said she had plans to travel to the border on Saturday.
Moments ago on @abc15 - @GovernorHobbs said she's going to the Border tomorrow to further examine the situation in #Lukeville. Will explore national guard options, but says a federal order for guard help would carry more weight. pic.twitter.com/TWCbn5K7Mi
— Luke Garrison (@LukeTVNews) December 8, 2023
CBP announced the closure, which began December 4, in order to redirect its Lukeville personnel to assist with border security. Those personnel were moved to assist “U.S. Border Patrol with taking migrants into custody,” according to officials.
This border point is the main one that Arizonans use to travel to Rocky Point, a popular tourist destination in Mexico.
Phoenix native Salvador Cabrales is a third-generation boatyard owner and operator in Rocky Point, but his wife and two children live in Phoenix. He has been traveling back and forth weekly for decades, relying on the Lukeville Port of Entry until its recent closure. What typically takes just over three hours now takes Cabrales eight.
"It's a little unnerving, a little stressful for everybody and it's a terrible way to keep families apart," Cabrales said.
Other business owners told ABC15 the area is a ghost town and they are struggling to make ends meet. Cabrales hopes the governor will clarify the next steps during her visit.
On Friday, Gov. Hobbs announced Operation SECURE (Safety, Enforcement, Coordination, & Uniform Response). In a news release, Hobbs announced the operation is an effort to mobilize additional state resources to bring order and security to the border.
Operation SECURE will create a new Border Security Office within the Department of Homeland Security.
The office, funded for the year with $2 million from ARPA, will serve as a hub of coordination for border security operations to ensure local, state, and federal assets are being properly leveraged to keep Arizonans safe and maintain a secure, humane, and orderly border. In addition, unless the Biden Administration promptly reopens the port of entry, the operation will mobilize up to $5 million for the National Guard to augment and support the Department of Public Safety and local law enforcement agencies along the southern border, including fentanyl interdiction efforts, according to an announcement from Hobbs.
Hobbs also announced she sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging more than 200 National Guard members from the Tucson Sector to be put to use to support the reopening of the Lukeville Port of Entry.
Between November 24 through December 1, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that more than 17,000 migrants entered the U.S. in the Tucson Sector. That compares to the 23,411 migrants who entered during the entire month of November in 2022.
