Alert for undocumented migrants in northern Arizona

Some hysteria and a smidgen of hypocrisy

Guajillo chili and oregano in La Casita, a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant that's enormously popular in Flagstaff and worth trying out. https://www.facebook.com/lacasitamexicanaflag/ Photo: Rashmee Roshan Lall

Travelling back from the southern rim of the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff, Arizona, the van run by the taxi company had to negotiate a police corridor. Police and Arizona Department of Transport vehicles were on either side as traffic snaked through. Clearly, police and the state highway agency were looking for something. Or someone.

Who?

We’re a week on from the Biden administration’s decision to lift Title 42, a Trump-era policy that used the pandemic to stop most migration at the border on public health grounds. Might undocumented migrants have had anything to do with the checkpoint? And if so, why?

Hard to say but what’s clear is that northern Arizona, just as much as the southern part of the state, has been bracing for a migrant surge as Title 42 came to an end.

On May 10, the …