Migrant Smugglers Dressed as Border Patrol Agents Are Captured as Trump’s Crackdown Reduces Flood of Illegals to a Trickle

Life has gotten so bad for ‘coyotes’ who smuggle migrants across the Mexican border that some are dressing as Border Patrol agents in a bid to fool the men and women who really do that job.

Agents in Yuma, Arizona, nabbed three men – two Americans and a Mexican – just days before Donald Trump’s inauguration as they tried to impersonate Border Patrol to smuggle 24 migrants – mostly Mexican into the country.

The desperate measure came as Yuma, a hotbed for illegal crossings at the height of the nation’s crisis, has become a ghost town as stricter policies and enforcement brought by the new Trump administration go into effect.

‘It’s been really quiet,’ one local Border Patrol agent speaking on condition of anonymity told DailyMail.com. ‘In 2021 and 2022, yeah, it was busy then.

‘I’ve been enjoying the quiet.’

Uriel Perez-Cardenas, Jovani Sanchez-Cortez, and Kevin Valdez Ramirez are facing federal charges over the impersonation scheme which saw them modify a white Ford F150 truck to resemble a Border Patrol K-9 vehicle and stash the migrants in an Airbnb in Yuma.

When DailyMail.com visited the property in early February, the drab, gray-painted house was deserted and neighbors said they hadn’t seen anyone there since the bust.

The elaborate deception even included fake uniforms which were seized in the raid on the property on January 8 that also saw all the migrants hauled away.

Other migrants have been caught wearing camouflage in the hope they can go undetected in the sand dunes east of town.

Four migrants were busted by Border Patrol after sneaking in through the dunes and getting picked up by an American smuggler who attempted to flee with them in a truck, damaging two government vehicles in the process. All five are now behind bars.

Another three Mexican men were picked up by dirt bike-riding Border Patrol officers wearing camouflage to help them blend in to the sand.

Yuma, a rural, sleepy city of 95,000 people in the extreme south west corner of Arizona, became a flashpoint for illegal immigration three years ago, seeing a staggering 1,500 migrants flooding in at entry points almost daily under the Biden administration.

But in the four weeks since President Trump re-entered office promising mass deportations and the virtual closure of the southern border, the flood that had engulfed Yuma has slowed to a barely-there trickle.

Just one group of eight migrants – seven Guatemalans and one Brazilian – arrived in the first three weeks of Trump’s second administration, turning themselves in at a gap in the border fence on the Cocopah Indian Reservation east of town.

Now partially blocked with cinderblocks, it had, until recently, been a popular crossing spot for undocumented migrants.

And while they were paroled into the US under President Biden, Trump says any new crossers will be expelled immediately.

The border city of Yuma, Arizona was once a hotbed for illegal immigration thanks to the gaps along the border wall that have now been shut under the Trump administration

At the height of the border crisis in 2021 and 2022, droves of migrants from Haiti, Colombia, Honduras, and other Latin American countries, were often seen arriving at the crossing point and being detained by Border Patrol agents. Now,several of the gaps along the wall have been closed off

Yuma, which supplies 95 percent of the US and Canada’s leafy greens in the winter, was forced to cough up $20million on medical care for migrants in the first nine months of 2022 alone, prompting Mayor Doug Nicholls to declare a state of emergency.

The town’s Family Behavioral Integrated Services medical center was used to process migrants and became the departure point for bus after bus bound for Phoenix and other big cities.

Meanwhile, farmers became accustomed to seeing illegal immigrants trudging through the rolling fields of broccoli and cabbages that surround the town hoping to find Border Patrol and turn themselves in.

Today, those fields are empty of everyone but farm workers and the medical center and the local homeless shelter – both of which saw migrants lining up around the block at the height of the crisis – are deserted.

‘We haven’t seen very many migrants coming in recently,’ Sassa Culver of the Crossroads Mission told DailyMail.com. ‘None, actually.’

The Mission, which serves 300 meals to the city’s homeless population every day, made headlines in 2022 when it was overwhelmed by hungry migrants who were seen lining up for a meal with local vagrants.

The infamous ‘Gap’- the large break in the border fence accessible via a dam connected to Mexico – has now been slammed shut

One break within the border wall which cuts through the Cocopah Indian Reservation – which refuses to erect a fence – and was a popular entry point for illegal migrants, is now partially blocked with cinderblocks

The city’s Family Behavioral Integrated Services medical center which was once used to process migrants and became a departure point for buses transporting them to sanctuary cities, is back to operating in its original capacity

Back in 2021, DailyMail.com witnessed migrant climb down a slope leading to the Morelos Dam – a joint US-Mexican installation in the Colorado River. Today, that same area is now deserted

But thanks to the Trump administration’s flurry of immigration-related orders, Sassa told DailyMail.com that most of the people they serve now come from the US.

Evidence of the new administration’s impact is everywhere, not least along the border wall itself where the authorities have been busy installing fresh rolls of razor wire.

That took place on January 29 – nine days after Trump took office – followed by the arrival of contractors hired to plug gaps in the wall with solar-powered gates.

Also involved in beefing up border security are soldiers from the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma who have been helping to maintain Yuma Sector Border Patrol vehicles.

Even the infamous ‘Gap’ – a large break in the border fence accessible via a dam connected to Mexico – has been slammed shut.

A large solar-powered gate with fencing on either side has been installed, albeit last year under the Biden administration, and the site which was once thronged with crossing migrants is now deserted.

Expulsions into the Mexican city of San Luis Rio Colorado on the opposite side of the border have also picked up, with a group of 10 photographed being forced to cross back into Mexico on January 29.

Unsurprisingly, many Yuma locals are delighted with the new administration – not least Barbara and Dennis, a retired couple who live within sight of the Gap.

‘I do feel safer under Trump,’ Dennis told DailyMail.com. ‘Biden, I didn’t like him. He made it like everyone was welcome but not everyone is welcome.’

Dennis says he was shot at by cartel coyotes during the height of the crisis while Border Patrol cars screeching past their house at all hours became the norm.

The couple also briefly took in a Cuban woman hoping to join family in Florida who had illegally crossed through the Gap and helped her turn herself in to Border Patrol.

‘A lot of them are really nice people, maybe 90 percent,’ said Barbara. ‘But there is a percentage who are criminal.

‘Trump, he’s all shock and awe. But we don’t need to have Border Patrol on speed dial anymore.’

Mayor Nicholls is also happy to see the back of what he described as ‘a glaring border security failure’ in a recent op-ed for the Yuma Sun.

‘We must never surrender control of the border and let the transnational criminal organizations have their way like was done in the last four years,’ he wrote.

For Barbara, whose home’s proximity to the Gap gave her a front-row seat, it has all come as a huge relief.

‘I’m glad that we don’t have the mobs of people anymore,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘It was just distressing day and night.’