(The Center Square) – In the first three months of fiscal 2023, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona brought criminal charges against nearly 1,456 foreign nationals who’d illegally entered and then reentered the U.S. They also filed 260 cases against individuals charged with smuggling illegal foreign nationals in Arizona.
The cases are from the Tucson and Yuma U.S. Customs and Border Protection Sectors in Arizona, which cover the entire Arizona-Mexico border. The numbers only include U.S. Attorney's Office prosecutions and exclude CBP prosecutions.
The Yuma Sector covers the southeast corner of Arizona – approximately 181,670 square miles of primarily desert terrain divided between California and Arizona and 126 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border from the Imperial Sand Dunes in California to the Yuma-Pima County line in Arizona. The Tucson Sector covers most of the state of Arizona from the New Mexico State line to the Yuma County line and 262 shared border miles with Mexico. Both sectors saw more than 816,000 apprehensions and gotaways in fiscal 2022, a record high.
