Senator Sinema closing in on border deal

YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - Independent U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona said Senate negotiators are closing in on a bi-partisan border security deal.

Sinema said she’s making great progress on border security negotiations, with only one or two items left to be negotiated. 

“As we know Arizona has been bearing the brunt of the federal government’s failure to address this crisis for the last 40 years and what I’ve been trying to communicate to my colleagues is the real-life implications of our failure to take action,” said Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema stated she has been using real-life examples of what life is like in Arizona.

Particularly Yuma and other border communities to help her colleagues understand the severity of the crisis and the dire need to address this issue.

“We want to change the asylum process to make it effective, so that people who qualify for asylum can get it in our country, but also to ensure that we have operational control of the border so that it’s no longer being exploited by the cartels,” said Sinema.

The Senator said right now, cartels are charging people large amounts of money to bring them to the border and send them in.

But most of those individuals won’t even qualify for asylum. 

"We need to change the system so that folks can no longer just enter into the country and wait to interact with a border patrol agent. We need to decide who gets to come into the country, when, and they need to come in through an orderly process,” said Sinema.

According to Customs and Border Protection, more than 6,000 migrants crossed through the Yuma Sector in November.

And we are still helping process migrants from the Tucson sector.

Sinema said she hopes to finish the negotiations in the next few weeks.