Over the weekend, a massive caravan of thousands of illegal migrants, mostly from Nicaragua, crossed the border into West Texas in a stunning surge that shocked immigration agents, neighboring towns, and state officials.
By Monday, over 5,000 illegal immigrants had arrived at the Border Patrol’s central processing center in El Paso, Texas, officials told the New York Times. They estimated that about 2,000 people came to the U.S. each day, with the largest influx reaching 800 to 1,000 migrants on Sunday night.
State Senator César J. Blanco, who represents the region, argued that the situation is untenable, with El Paso, a community with limited capacity, being forced to accommodate scores of migrants regularly.
“We’re feeling it. It’s straining resources,” he told the publication, noting that El Paso has functioned as an Ellis Island but for illegal immigration. “Whether we want it or not, it is.”
El Paso’s predicament, which included 53,000 apprehensions in October alone, is the worst among U.S.-Mexico border towns, although all are bearing the brunt of the raging border crisis. So far in 2022, there have been 2,378,944 migrant encounters along the southern border, according to immigration data.
Homeless shelters in El Paso are flooded, as is the processing center, which typically releases the migrants into the interior with instruction to return for a future court date, which many do not oblige.
Blake Barrow, the director of the Rescue Mission of El Paso, told the Times that his shelter was “bursting at the seams” and was mostly filled with migrants rather than U.S. citizens.
“The numbers are like nothing I’ve seen for the last 25 years,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t know how to address this problem. The situation is overwhelming us.”
Rosalio Sosa, who runs a network of shelters in the area, told the outlet that her facilities are struggling to keep up with the constant inflow of migrants. “The queue right now is endless,” he said.
An anonymous administration official implied the federal government is still attempting to tackle the “root” causes of illegal immigration in economically ravaged and politically tumultuous countries in Central America that are sparking the migrant upheaval. The Biden administration has not come up with a plan to fix the border catastrophe, he said.
The inundation of migrants at the border this week comes as Title 42, a public-health order first used by former president Donald Trump during the pandemic to expel illegal immigrants, is set to expire on December 21 in accordance with a federal judge’s ruling. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) anticipates that between 9,000 and 14,000 migrants will arrive on the Southern border daily without Title 42 in place. With Title 42, illegal crossings still range between 6,000 and 7,000 daily.
A federal judge last month blocked the rule, claiming the CDC’s use of it was “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedures Act.
In December, it was reported that President Biden and senior Democratic aides were considering a strategy resembling a Trump-era “transit ban” that would bar asylum seekers who chose not to apply for asylum in another country they traveled through to reach the U.S.