Officials say the Trump-era border deportation policy is expected to increase immigrant border crossings by 40% later this month, according to El Paso, Texas.
The city is now ground zero for the border crisis, and El Paso County District Judge Ricardo Samaniego said Monday, Dec. 21, that the end of Title 42 will make flooding worse.
“One time [migrants] See this happening, more people will come in,” he said at a public meeting.
Ending the policy in El Paso means the 1,700 crossings per day could rise to 2,380 per day. Nationally, about 18,000 immigrants can cross into the United States each day.
The pandemic policy, which began under the Trump administration, is used by the US Border Patrol to deport about 40 percent of all border crossers from the US. A federal judge ordered the government to end the policy, but the Biden administration filed an appeal on Wednesday, asking for it to be used in the future — though it promised to meet the Dec. 21 expiration date.
Under the Biden administration, the number of immigrants crossing the border has increased – a record 2.4 million people will cross into the United States in fiscal year 2022.
Since October, there have been more border crossings in El Paso than anywhere else in the country, according to Border Patrol statistics. El Paso leaders held an emergency planning meeting Tuesday, Samaniego said.
“If we don’t do the right thing, it’s a matter of going from a manageable crisis to potential chaos,” he said.
The county, which currently operates a migrant center to help asylum seekers travel from El Paso to their final destination in the United States, plans to move to a larger facility to process more migrants. The county is also working with nonprofits in Houston and Dallas to get immigrants out of the western Texas border city.
The end of Title 42 means the 1,700 daily border crossings in El Paso could jump to 2,380 a day.
In September, the migrants were released into the streets where they slept in tents for several days.
At El Paso International Airport, immigrants sleep in designated areas with their beds, with an early morning flight and a wait of less than 12 hours.
The moves are seen as necessary to keep the endless waves of immigrants from overflowing shelters or using the El Paso airport as a temporary shelter. Cots at El Paso International Airport are available for migrants with a morning flight and a wait of less than 12 hours.
Samaniego described El Paso as “at breaking point,” with shelters at capacity and immigrants sleeping on the streets near bus depots.
The city of El Paso relies heavily on the federal government for help, saying the border crisis is too big for them.
El Paso County District Judge Ricardo Samaniego on Monday described the areas’ resources as “at breaking point.”
El Paso County District Judge Ricardo Samaniego described the areas’ resources as “at breaking point.”
“Nobody can make it; You have no recourse for that, El Paso Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino said local station KFOX. “It’s going to take a lot of effort, and a lot of it is going to come down to what the federal government can do to help us squeeze out our region.”
But that help may not come soon. A sheriff in an overcrowded county in Arizona blasted President Biden for refusing to go to the border during his trip to Arizona.
“Only the Commander-in-Chief is responsible for this” Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot told News Nation. “I mean he’s going to say yes or no and shame on him for not wanting to do the right thing by the local community.”
He said his deputies see 900 to 950 immigrants a day in a county of just under 200,000.
Biden traveled to Phoenix on Monday to visit a manufacturing company. When asked why he didn’t go to the border across the press pool, he replied: “Because there are more important things going on. They want to invest billions of dollars in the new enterprise.”
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