That’s certainly one way to force apprehension numbers downward. In a Townhall exclusive, Julio Rosas got access to Border Patrol logs and other data showing that a large part of the southern border has been left essentially undefended by Joe Biden. “Border Patrol no longer does border enforcement,” one source told Julio. “It does border enrollment.”

Border Patrol daily assignment rosters in the Yuma Sector, obtained exclusively by Townhall, show how open the U.S.-Mexico border has become in the area as many agents — instead of patrolling the international border — are assigned to either process the thousands of illegal immigrants who willingly give themselves up to seek asylum or transport the large groups of people from the border to the sector’s headquarters.

The documents, which span several weeks of assignments for Yuma Station, provide a rare insight into the daily operations for a sector that experienced a 584 percent increase in single adult encounters, a 242 percent increase in family unit encounters, and a 237 percent increase in unaccompanied children encounters during fiscal year 2021 compared to fiscal year 2020. The assignment logs, which were given to Townhall unedited except to show who was on patrol and who was on field processing, have been blacked out to protect the identities of the Border Patrol agents. They did not include the assignments for agents working at Blythe Station or Wellton Station.

The documents show when one to four agents are assigned to patrol the southern border, they are often placed near the San Luis Port of Entry or have to cover multiple zones by themselves. Prior to this year’s surge, it was explained to Townhall that most of the zones would be covered by at least one agent, depending on if there was a wall and the manpower for the day.

The logs reveal, depending on the day and shift, more agents are assigned to actions such as transport, processing, or hospital watch, where they guard illegal immigrants taken to local hospitals, instead of patrolling the border.

Julio notes that the zero-agent situation was literal until the deaths of a young mother and her child on the river in early August. They died of exposure after making a last-ditch 911 call. When Border Patrol has enough personnel to operate normally, they can interdict people in distress more effectively — especially when policies are in place that don’t act as incentives to rush the border. Even after the death of Pineda Sarmiento, though, resources have been stretched so far that the effective patrol strength along the Yuma sector is still effectively zero most of the time.

And that costs lives, as it will into the foreseeable future:

“I have no doubt that they would have survived” if more agents had been assigned to patrol, the source said, pointing to how Pineda Sarmiento was found not far from a road that agents normally patrolled before this year’s surge in illegal crossings.

“I’ve never seen so many people die in one year along the border. This is the worst it’s ever been and the number of entries is increasing. The deaths will spike again, there is no end in sight and the Yuma summer heat is coming again.”

Efforts to bolster patrol numbers included using Border Patrol K-9 units and members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), but that was a temporary fix. The lack of manpower at the border became so dire in the Yuma Sector that Border Patrol told local law enforcement during a muster in December they would be relying on them to do border-enforcement type work since their agents would be unable to do it.

How has the Biden administration responded to the border crisis? For the moment, they’ve reverted back to the Donald Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, forced to do so by federal courts. They’re still fighting this, however, which sends signals that Biden still plans to welcome a lot more asylum seekers once he gets his policies fully implemented. On Monday, the Washington Post reported that he wants to redo asylum processes in the US based on a European model that would house asylum seekers in the country, and presumably policed by the overextended Border Patrol:

The proposals remain in development, these people said, but the reception center model represents a possible breakthrough because it would reduce the number of illegal border-crossers issued a notice to appear in U.S. courts, the practice derided by Republicans as “catch and release.” It also potentially offers Democrats a more palatable alternative to the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” program that Biden has restarted under federal court order but is reviled by immigrant advocates.

Katie Tobin, Biden’s top immigration adviser on the National Security Council, said the administration’s goal is to move in a direction “where we are testing innovative ideas that are humane, that maintain the due process that’s required in an asylum adjudication but that get us away from a system where people wait five years for a decision.” …

While the operational details of the reception center model remain in flux, it would probably require asylum seekers who cross the border to remain at government sites until their cases are decided. If they did not qualify for protection in the United States, they would be deported.

Proponents of the model say it would allow migrant families to remain together in a non-carceral setting with access to recreation and educational programming, medical services, and legal counsel. The multiple federal agencies and nonprofit groups that work with asylum seekers would have a presence at the consolidated sites to streamline the process, according to others involved in the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

So people who rush the border will get “recreation,” education, health care, and legal services? Color me skeptical that this will do much to change the incentives that created this border crisis. That means we need more Border Patrol agents on the job — or the rest of the border wall erected to fix the problem more permanently.

Note: Julio Rosas’ first-person reporting is funded by Townhall’s VIP/VIP Gold subscription programs. We thank our members for those resources that allow us to get around the mainstream media’s narrative journalism and shine a light on real national-security issues like the border crisis.