Title 42, the Covid-era policy that allowed Border Patrol to turn illegal immigrants back across the border, is set to expire Thursday. However, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants have already crossed into Texas alone, with the city of El Paso attempting to clean the overrun city streets ahead of the expected surge of illegal immigrants.
Just one day out from the expiration of Title 42, CBP sources are sharing that apprehensions along the southern border have already surpassed 10,000 on both Monday and Tuesday of this week. Bill Melugin tweets, “I’m told these are the highest single day totals ever recorded – and it’s expected to go even higher after T42 drops tomorrow.”
These numbers follow last week’s numbers in which US Border Patrol Chief, Raul Ortiz, shared that almost 55,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended, with an additional 18,500 declared as “gotaways,” meaning these migrants either evaded or were not processed by Border Patrol upon crossing. These numbers follow the over 90,000 that crossed the US border within a 10-day time frame in late April as fear over the expiration of Title 42 grows.
Per NewsNation, over 2,000 migrants are sleeping on the streets of El Paso, as holding facilities, “are over capacity with roughly 4,800 people in custody right now.”
In an attempt to get migrants off the streets ahead of Thursday, DHS announced new “enforcement operations” at the beginning of this week, sharing that they would be targeting unprocessed migrants who were camping on streets.
As a part of this new operation, CBP and ICE agents walked throughout the migrant camp located outside of the Sacred Heart Church in El Paso on Tuesday, asking migrants if they had their “notice to appear” papers. These papers are given to migrants once they are processed by Border Patrol and usually have a court date set for migrants to appear for immigration proceedings. Migrants who did not have their papers were directed to a processing center by CBP agents.
One agent on the ground shared that no apprehensions would be taking place, clarifying that officials were on the ground solely to let migrants know that without their processing papers they would not be able to receive food or shelter from local NGOs.
To prepare for the incoming influx of migrants the city of El Paso has declared a “state of emergency” which will allow the city to utilize emergency shelters. The city is planning on utilizing two middle schools and potentially the city’s civic center as temporary shelter for migrants.
Governor Greg Abbott has also set up a “Texas Tactical Border Force,” sending an additional 545 national guardsmen to border crossing hot spots around Texas. During a press conference on Monday, Gov. Abbott shared that national guardsmen would be deployed to, “intercept, to repel and to turn back migrants who are trying to enter Texas illegally.”
President Joe Biden also announced that he would be sending 1,500 troops to the border for “administrative services” to help overwhelmed CBP officials, however, according to NewsNation correspondent Ali Bradley, multiple sources have reported that “CBP sources confirm all sectors have authorized street releases when the NGOs/shelters are full.”