Central American consulates in Arizona are reporting an increased number of immigrants being deported along the southern US border. There has been a notable shift in the overall migration flow, as more immigrants head to Texas as opposed to Arizona.
Given the circumstances, many immigrants coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, and other Latin-American countries are being detained along the southern border of Texas and then transferred to detention centers in Arizona and New Mexico.
The Salvadoran consul in Tucson, Luzimilla Aguirre, noted, “In the last month-and-a-half we’ve had quite a lot of people to interview who are being returned due to migration who have been detained in Texas. Just this week, I interviewed more than 40 people who were detained in McAllen (Texas).”
So far this fiscal year, 97,386 immigrants have been detained along the Texas border, compared to 52,360 near Arizona, according to the latest Border Patrol statistics. In addition, the 18,493 Guatemalans that have been deported so far in 2014 represent a 24 percent increase over the same period last year, according to Guatemala’s consul in Phoenix.
Source: Latin American Herald Tribune.