Border Agents Rescue Guatemalan Migrant Stranded Atop Mountain In Arizona
This is the moment US border officials airlift a Guatemalan migrant to safety after he became stranded on a mountain in Arizona.
The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) rescue operation took place in the Baboquivari Peak wilderness area near the city of Tucson in the US state of Arizona, not far from the border with Mexico.
Border officials and members of the CBP Air and Marine Operations (AMO) rescued the stranded Guatemalan migrant, aged 24, from an area near Baboquivari Peak on 26th July.
The rescue team was responding to a 911 call by the migrant after he became stranded in the wilderness area.
The team arrived at his location in an AMO Black Hawk helicopter. Due to the rugged terrain, the crew had to airlift the man onboard.
First, an AMO medic was sent down to the migrant’s position to prepare him for extraction.
The Black Hawk team then flew the Guatemalan man to a temporary immigration processing facility, according to the CBP.
In the footage, the Black Hawk helicopter is seen arriving at the location before sending down two AMO officials to check the migrant and prepare him for extraction while the chopper hovers overhead.
One AMO agent returns to the helicopter while his colleague waits to be airlifted with the migrant.
In the next scene, the pair is seen being hoisted onboard the Black Hawk before closing the door and making their way to the immigration processing facility.
Officials for the Tucson sector said they have encountered over 118,000 single adult migrants so far this fiscal year, a whopping increase of 282 percent over the last year.
In a statement U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that by the end of last month (June) there had also been more than 13,000 unaccompanied children crossing the border at Tuscon this year – which is a 189 percent increase on the year 2000.
Last week alone one single group in Tuscon included 197 migrants of which 147 were unaccompanied migrant children, mostly from Guatemala.
Two days prior, agents encountered a group of 48 migrants near Sasabe, Arizona. Thirty-nine were juveniles, from age 5 to 17. Twenty-seven were children from Guatemala.
All members of both groups were transported to Tucson for processing.
The Baboquivari Peak wilderness area is administered by the Bureau of Land Management and was designated by the US Congress in 1990, making it the smallest such designated wilderness in the state of Arizona.
