Title 42 ending: Border braces for ‘D-Day’ at midnight with looming migrant surge
Kaelan Deese Anna Giaritelli
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EL PASO, Texas — Cities neighboring the Mexican border are preparing for the end of a sweeping immigration policy that has served as a procedural barrier against illegal immigration since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think now we’re getting down to D-Day,” said Jose Sanchez, regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s western region, during an interview Thursday.
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The policy known as Title 42 is one of the public health measures that came into effect during the Trump administration three years ago that was posited as necessary to protect the nation against the coronavirus. The policy extended into the Biden administration and to date has resulted in more than 2.8 million expulsions since March 2020, including those who attempted to cross more than once.
That public health emergency is concluding Thursday at 11:59 p.m. EDT Thursday as federal, state, and local officials brace for a gathering storm of mass migration.
“This has been the worst chaos we’ve ever seen concerning the border,” Sanchez said. “This is the biggest I’ve ever seen in El Paso. It’s chaotic, it’s frustrating, it’s hectic, and it’s causing a lot of problems, especially for the citizens that live on our border.”
Border communities did not wait to take action. Two weeks ago, the Texas cities of Brownsville, Laredo, and El Paso proactively declared states of emergency.
The Biden administration on Wednesday finalized rules to further restrict asylum, including deployment of troops and other personnel to the southwest border, along with funding for border communities.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the House passed a bill Thursday evening that would mandate U.S. Customs and Border Protection train 22,000 Border Patrol agents and create a plan to update existing technology to ensure agents are well equipped. GOP lawmakers celebrated its passing, a political victory to show unity around enforcement, despite the uphill battle it faces in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The sudden push from Congress and concern among the public should have come a long time ago — when monthly border arrests spiked from 60,000 to 300,000, Sanchez said.
“It’s great that the media is out here. I’ve never seen so much, so many people from the media field in this area. And obviously it’s because it’s a critical event,” he said. “It deserves all the attention it’s getting, but this attention should have been brought to the attention of America a year ago, two years ago, when we started first started seeing this.”
At present, Border Patrol is aware of approximately 65.000 people in northern Mexico waiting to enter the United States. However, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said in a roundtable discussion with the Washington Examiner that that figure was on par with how many people have traveled to northern Mexico at any point in the last two years, so the anticipated surge may not be so severe.
Still, more than 10,000 immigrants have been apprehended daily this week after illegally crossing. It is a significant figure given that the Obama administration had characterized 1,000 apprehensions a day as a “bad day.”
Border cities and states have prepared significantly for weeks and months for the conclusion of the sweeping pandemic measure, with Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) deploying a Texas Tactical Border Force.
“The Texas National Guard is loading Black Hawk helicopters and C-130s and deploying specially trained soldiers for the Texas Tactical Border Force, who will be deployed to hots pots all along the border to help intercept and repel large groups of migrants trying to enter Texas illegally,” Abbott said in a statement.
Abbott said he would send in 500 more troops this week, which came within days of the federal government’s decision to send in 1,500 active-duty troops to unspecified locations.
Like El Paso, Brownsville has also been seeing 2,000 illegal immigrants arrested each day recently.
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State troopers in West Texas will take a two-pronged approach to bolster security Thursday evening into Friday. Troopers will be on the front line with Border Patrol and Texas National Guard, while other state police will be on roving patrols to interdict smugglers transporting illegal immigrants by vehicle.
The city of Yuma, Arizona, has seen more than 1,000 immigrants crossing the border daily, according to city officials who say they are working with federal, state, and regional parties to plan and prepare for an anticipated surge of immigrants.