PHOENIX (AP) - Border Patrol agents descended on a medical camp set up in the Arizona desert to provide refuge and water for migrants in the scorching summer heat, arresting four men who were receiving aid after spending several days in the desert.
The Border Patrol said agents began tracking the men Tuesday while they walked north on a known smuggling route and then entered the camp run by No More Deaths/No Mas Muertes, an organization that provides care for migrants along the border. The Border Patrol initially said agents began tracking the group Wednesday but the agency later corrected that account.
"The type of operation they are doing, for me, is unprecedented and there's nothing routine about what they did. It wasn't part of their day-to-day operation. It was a staged military siege on our camp," said Catherine Gaffney, a longtime volunteer who was present during the arrests and who said 15 trucks and about 30 agents, some armed with long rifles, entered the facility.
The enforcement action comes after President Donald Trump has made securing the border a top priority of his administration, including a signature campaign promise to build a wall along the border with Mexico. His presidency has coincided with a big drop off in immigrants crossing the border from Mexico, but immigration authorities have been arresting more people in the country illegally, and doing so in places where they had previously avoided, like courthouses.
Gaffney said agents had been stationed outside the camp since Tuesday afternoon, when the migrants arrived. She said a camp doctor asked the agency Thursday morning for more time to treat the men, who had suffered from heat-related illnesses and needed an additional 24 hours of supervised care.
Gaffney said volunteers were escorted to a different part of the camp as a helicopter circled overhead and the agents arrested the four men, all Mexican nationals. Gaffney said the men were between the ages of 19 and 40.
"They didn't need 30 agents to apprehend four sick people," Gaffney said, adding the agency's public relations team filmed the encounter.
The Border Patrol said talks between agents and camp representatives on gaining access to question the men about their citizenship and legal status were unsuccessful. Agents then obtained a search warrant and swooped into the camp Thursday evening.
The Border Patrol has launched a media campaign aimed at preventing desert crossings that often result in deaths.
The Tucson Sector, which covers most of Arizona, has 34 strategically-placed rescue beacons migrants can activate for rescue. More than 200 agents in the Tucson Sector are emergency medical technicians and about 25 are paramedics, the agency said.
Agents in that area conducted more than 1,400 rescues and reported 84 deaths last fiscal year, according to agency statistics. So far this year through April, agents in the Tucson Sector have rescued 160 people and reported 14 deaths.
"Our primary mission is to conduct law enforcement operations along the border and in the course of our duties we're often the first responders to emergency situations," Border Patrol spokesman Vicente Paco said. "We are one the largest agencies that have resources in the desert where we respond."
Paco said the agency understands the mission of No More Deaths but doesn't condone its actions because it encourages illegal immigration.
Alicia Dinsmore, a No More Deaths spokeswoman, said the aid camp is composed of medically-trained volunteers who have first-responder certification and provide care, food and water. The group has been providing aid for 13 years and has a verbal agreement with the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector to operate there. The camp is open most of the year.
Seven volunteers, including one doctor, were at the camp Thursday when agents arrested the four people.
"This incident was a targeted attack on humanitarian aid," Dinsmore said.
She said agents have arrested migrants who received aid several times in the past but that the large-scale operation on Thursday was unprecedented. The group was most troubled by the fact that agents apparently had tracked the migrants for 18 or so miles but waited until they were at the camp to make arrests, Dinsmore said.