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Lukeville is a small town in the US state of Arizona on the Mexican border. So many migrants have recently arrived there from Mexico that U.S. officials have closed the border crossing there. Officers monitor vehicle and pedestrian traffic in both directions to help Border Patrol agents arrest and process people.
© John Moore/Getty Images

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The border crossing in the desert has grown into an important migration route in recent months. Smugglers illegally dump people there. Most of them enter the United States through gaps in the wall and head east toward official border crossings to confront the first officials — hoping for a chance at asylum. Many of them are taken to the processing center.
© John Moore/Getty Images

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Migrants try to warm themselves by fire. Hundreds of so-called open-air camps had no access to food or water. Activists say some have to sleep in the open in a scorpion- and snake-infested desert.
© Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

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The Border Patrol said it detected 17,500 illegal border crossings last week.
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A car drives along the border fence at the US-Mexico border in Jacumba.
© Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images

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Immigrants are photographed at a US Border Patrol processing center. According to Fox News, they are mostly men from Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania, Egypt and other countries.
© John Moore/Getty Images

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Stay or be deported? Some immigrants are transported to facilities in Yuma, Arizona and El Paso for expedited deportation.
© John Moore/Getty Images

People continue to arrive at the southern US border without the necessary documents. Thousands have now crossed the border wall and entered Mexico through gaps. Immigration and illegal immigration are divisive in American society and are likely to be among the central election campaign issues.

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Opposition Republicans have been talking about the border crisis, accusing US President Joe Biden of allowing people into the country without control, thereby harming the US. The Democratic left, however, accuses the president of not fulfilling his campaign promise of a more humane border policy.