In anticipation of the major influx of illegal immigrants expected to breach the Southern Border, officials with the city of El Paso, Texas, have asked the Biden administration for the use of military bases for the housing of illegal aliens.
The expected increase in entering migrants is directly related to the expiration of Title 42, a law that allows federal health authorities to prohibit migrants from entering the country if it is determined that doing so could prevent the spread of contagious diseases. Title 42 is set to expire on Dec. 21.
The CBP is seeing an average of 2,500 crossings a day, mostly around the downtown area of El Paso.
Breaking! Over the weekend, the El Paso Sector experienced a major surge in illegal crossings, with a 3-day average of 2,460 daily encounters, primarily through the downtown area of El Paso. We will continue to keep the public informed as the situation evolves. pic.twitter.com/V2pOO6Y31N
— Peter Jaquez (@USBPChiefEPT) December 12, 2022
This week, in one of the largest mass crossings recorded in the region, more than 1500 migrants crossed the Rio Grande on foot from Juárez into El Paso Sunday night.
According to a city of El Paso dashboard, more than 5,100 migrants were held in the Border Patrol Central Processing Center, which is designed to temporarily hold 3,500 people.
One thousand seven hundred forty-four migrants were released on Saturday and Sunday, but because of the lack of available beds at shelters run by nongovernmental institutions, 611 were released onto the streets in downtown El Paso.
The dashboard also shows that Border Patrol agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in the El Paso region have encountered almost 15,000 migrants in the past week –the highest weekly total of the year so far.
In an interview on Fox News, El Paso City Rep. Claudia Rodriguez said she had been calling on the mayor of El Paso to declare an emergency before Title 42 expires and called the situation “unsustainable.”
"Over the weekend, we had 2,500 [illegal immigrants] coming into our city — daily," says El Paso City Rep. Claudia Rodriguez.
"The federal government is not doing their job…this is unsustainable." pic.twitter.com/y9qNcSZvf4
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 14, 2022
On Wednesday, Former El Paso U.S. Marshal Robert Almonte voiced the urgency of the situation on “Fox & Friends First.” Altamonte warned that some of those migrants are going to be committing crimes and a lot of them are going to become victims of crime. He explained that the border communities of El Paso and Brownsville did not have the resources to handle these numbers and it had become a situation where “state and local authorities are handling a federal problem.”
“The floodgates are open, and when Title 42 is lifted, you’re going to see the dam break,” Altamonte said.
