File image of a Border Patrol agent using binoculars to surveil an area just north of Arizona's border with Mexico.
From July through September, the US Attorney’s Office filed 364 cases against people for smuggling undocumented migrants within Arizona — a 14% increase from the previous three months and a 50% increase from the first quarter of the year.
People charged with human smuggling near the border are typically U.S. citizens transporting migrants evading Border Patrol.
The number of people entering the country into Arizona unauthorized greatly decreased in that same time. But the bulk of those people are turning themselves into Border Patrol and are not involved in smuggling arrests.
Federal prosecutors in Arizona also brought criminal charges against more than 26-hundred people for entering or re-entering the country unauthorized and 67 drug cases from seizures at immigration ports of entry and checkpoints.
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