El Paso to issue new state of emergency as border facilities hit capacity ahead of Title 42 expiration
El Paso, Texas will declare a new state of emergency on Monday as border facilities have reached capacity due to migrants flooding in from Mexico before Title 42 expires on May 11.
Mayor Oscar Leeser warned that his border city could buckle under the pressure of thousands of migrants seeking aid, with more expected to come as the US ends the federal pandemic-era policy which has allowed officials to kick millions of people back to Mexico.
Leeser said the declaration, which would likely last 30 days, will call on additional US government aid to provide shelters for the asylum seekers, as well as security for the whole community.
The city has already received $22.5 million from the feds.
“The reason we’re declaring a state of emergency is to make sure we can stand up and prepare for May 11,” Leeser said during a news conference Sunday. “To make sure we have public shelters, public housing… and two schools in place.”
This will be the second time in six months that an emergency has been declared in the beleaguered city, with recent local data showing more than 1,000 people a day are arriving at the border.
Officials predict 10,000 to 12,000 migrants will try to seek asylum at the border on May 11, with the volume expected to rise, Leeser said.
Leeser, who has long bemoaned the crisis at the US-Mexico border, added that El Paso would not be providing permanent homes to the migrants, and that the shelters would be temporary as the city helps asylum seekers reach their intended destination.
El Paso has made headlines over its busing program — with thousands of migrants sent to the north, including New York City, over the past year — much to the headache of Mayor Eric Adams, who condemned the program.
What is Title 42 and what does its end mean for US border immigration?
What is Title 42?
Title 42 is a federal health measure enforced by the US Border Patrol. It allows the agency to kick certain migrants out of the US and return them to Mexico. This includes asylum seekers, who under international law have the legal right to make an asylum claim in America.
Currently, migrants who cross the border illegally and who are from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua or Venezuela are subject to Title 42 and could be sent to Mexico.
How did Title 42 start?
President Donald Trump invoked the law in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue the policy. The Trump administration made the case that keeping migrants out of the country would slow down the spread of infections and maintain the safety of federal agents encountering migrants.
What has happened with Title 42 under Biden?
When President Biden took over, he continued to enforce Title 42 with one important change from his predecessor. Biden said Border Patrol agents were only allowed to expel migrants from certain countries under his direction. That meant migrants seeking asylum from countries like Cuba and Venezuela could still seek asylum if they arrived at the border and stay in the US while their cases were decided in court — unless they had a criminal record.
What is happening with Title 42 now?
Title 42 is supposed to be a health policy, not an immigration law. It will end at 11:59 p.m. May 11, when the Biden administration ends all COVID-19-related policies.
Why is it controversial?
Many have called for the policy’s end, saying it’s illegal and that international law guarantees people the right to seek asylum.
Others, like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, warn that the southern border could see up to 13,000 migrants per day crossing with the intention to stay in the country when the measure ends.
What would the end of Title 42 mean for immigration into the US?
It’s unclear exactly how many people have been expelled under Title 42 because there have been scores of people who have attempted to enter the country numerous times and been rejected again and again, but the US Border Patrol said it made an all-time high of more than 2.3 million arrests at the border in the last fiscal year. Forty percent of people who were expelled from the country were ejected under the rules of Title 42.
US Customs and Border Protection said that as of Saturday, more than 20,500 migrants were in custody along the southern border, with nearly 7,000 caught in the Rio Grande Valley sector alone.
There have been about 7,000 daily encounters in late April, with CBP officials warning that the number will rise in the coming weeks.
Along with the need for aid, Leeser called on the government to make serious changes to America’s immigration and border laws to curb the flood of migrants coming though the southern border.
“There’s no endgame to this, and we can’t continue as a city or as a country without the federal government changing federal laws.,” Leeser said. “The process right now is broken and it has not been fixed for many, many years.”
El Paso’s declaration comes as the border town of Brownsville, Texas, issued its own emergency, with Border Patrol Chief for the Rio Grande Valley Sector Gloria Chavez saying the city has seen over 15,000 Venezuelans arriving in the last eight days, CNN reports.
Like Leeser, Brownsville commissioner for District 1 Nurith Galonsky Pizana said the city will do its best to help the migrants transition through the town to reach their intended destination.
“These migrants who are making their way through Brownsville, they are not here to stay,” Galonsky Pizana said earlier this week. “They have a final destination outside of Brownsville, and we will manage this with due process as these individuals seek asylum.”
Although it seems counterintuitive for the migrants to try and cross the border illegally or seek asylum while Title 42 is still in place, it likely comes from a fear that it’ll be harder to get into the US once the policy expires.
With Title 42 gone, the US will revert to its decades-old protocols that were set up during mass migration in the US, including legal ramifications for people who repeatedly try to cross illegally.
