(Headline USA) Texas officials said they expect illegal border crossings to jump by another 40% when Title 42 ends on Dec. 21
The Trump-era policy allowed border officials to turn migrants away immediately if they didn’t meet refugee standards. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered President Joe Biden to lift all asylum restrictions last month, including Title 42, calling the rule “arbitrary and capricious.”
The Biden administration has appealed the ruling with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, but it could take months for the challenge to go through.
El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said this week that Sullivan’s order will have a devastating effect on the border crisis.
“Once [migrants] see that it’s happening, more people will come in,” he said during a public meeting, according to the New York Post.
Right now, nearly 1,700 illegal immigrants flood into El Paso on a daily basis. That number could jump up to 2,380 per day, El Paso officials predicted.
“It’s a matter of going from a managed crisis to potential chaos if we don’t do the right thing,” he said.
El Paso officials have been begging the Biden administration to provide them with more assistance to deal with the massive influx of migrants. Samaniego said El Paso’s shelters are already “at a breaking point,” with many migrants sleeping on the streets near bus depots.
“Nobody can keep up with that; there is no number of shelters you could have for that,” El Paso Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino told local station KFOX. “It’s going to take an all-out effort and a lot of that is going to come on the federal government on what they can do to help decompress our region in our area.”
Biden was scheduled to visit Arizona this week but did not stop by the southern border. When asked why, he said, “Because there are more important things going on.”
