Open gates in Arizona border wall give illegals easy entrance to U.S.: report

Gaps and open gates in Arizona's border wall highlight lingering problems for the system's ability to prevent pedestrian passage, according to a recent report.

The Epoch Times visited the U.S. border with Mexico accompanied by local guides working in private security who pointed to various openings in the barrier.

Among the most prominent were three flood gates left wide open through which anyone could walk unobstructed. “There’s another open gate bigger than this one, down that way,” the guide told the Times. “There are five or six gates like this."

“I tried to push one shut. It’s pretty hard to shut,” said another of the guides. “They would be damned secure if they were shut.”

The guides showed the journalists down the Roosevelt Easement, a 60-foot wide road that stretches nearly the entire U.S.-Mexican border.

“And this is the new wall Trump built. What sense does it make? How about closing the gates?” the guide asked rhetorically.

The flood gates reportedly stay open during the monsoon season to prevent flooding, but that practice has the adverse effect of making it much easier for migrants to enter the U.S., according to a border official the journalists encountered on the drive.

The outlet pointed to discarded water bottles and supportive notes left to migrants at the gates by activists and previous border crossers.

Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey touted his state's closure of a 1,000 ft. gap in the wall near Yuma earlier this month. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has quietly resumed construction of the barrier in Arizona amid the unprecedented migration surge.

Migrant crossings reached record highs this year amid lax enforcement policies from the Biden administration, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in particular, leading the charge to open the borders.

Under his leadership, DHS and border enforcement agencies have made use of a previously rare "parole" exception to release apprehended migrants into the U.S. interior.

Nearly 240,000 migrants crossed the border in May.