Title 42: US border communities declare disasters, plead for federal help as policy's expiration sets the stage for migration rush
CNN —
With tens of thousands of migrants believed to be massed in northern Mexico, the expiration overnight of the US Covid-era border restriction policy known as Title 42 has American border communities on edge, worried an already challenging humanitarian crisis will worsen as crossings climb.
“We’re boarding up like there were a hurricane coming,” Victor Treviño, the mayor of Laredo, Texas, told CNN Thursday evening.
The South Texas counties of Cameron and Hidalgo issued disaster declarations ahead of the order’s expiration at 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday to help free up state and federal resources as US troops, agents and other federal workers surged this week toward the southern border to help handle a possible crush.
Still, officials hit a roadblock late Thursday as a federal judge temporarily blocked the Biden administration from releasing screened and vetted migrants from border patrol without court notices – a method it had planned to use to alleviate immense strain on border facilities.
Meantime, new rules will limit asylum claims by migrants who traverse other countries en route to the US-Mexico border and closely track migrant families released into the US during the deportation process. The asylum rule, though, quickly drew a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union and others who said it echoes Trump-era policy, breaks with US and international law and puts vulnerable migrants in harm’s way.
Over the last two days, more than 10,000 migrants daily were taken into custody, US border authorities reported, marking a record for daily encounters and continuing an upward trend in border arrests. And about 155,000 migrants were estimated to be in shelters and on streets across northern Mexican states bordering the US, a source familiar with federal estimates said this week.
In El Paso, Texas, about 1,000 migrants waited Thursday afternoon to be processed outside a border gate, US Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said, beyond the 1,500 who were processed by border agents the previous two days.
Among them was a woman with a cut on her hand from barbed wire she’d just crossed along the border, she told CNN. A friend pointed to his ankle, revealing a gaping wound, and continued walking toward immigration authorities.
“The situation is tough in our countries,” the man told CNN, explaining why he’d made the journey.
This isn’t the first time El Paso has seen an influx at the border, and responding every few months to such swells is not sustainable, Mayor Oscar Leeser told CNN Thursday.
“We can’t continue to do this for eternity,” he said.
Title 42 had allowed US authorities since 2020 to swiftly expel undocumented migrants with some exceptions, ostensibly to stop the spread of Covid-19. Under it, authorities expelled migrants at the US-Mexico border more than 2.8 million times, according to US Customs and Border Protection data.
With the policy lapsing alongside the country’s public health emergency, the US now is leaning instead on a decades-old protocol with new wrinkles: Title 8, which could carry heavier legal consequences for those crossing unlawfully but often takes more time than Title 42 expulsions.
Just before Title 42 expired, the US homeland security secretary warned migrants the change does not mean the way is clear for unlawful entry: “Do not believe the lies of smugglers. The border is not open.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.
Migrants wait Thursday to be processed at the US-Mexico border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. David Peinado/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Border community leaders plead for help
With migrants said to be crowded at the border, leaders of US border towns continue to plead for help meeting the migrants’ needs as makeshift encampments proliferate and social services are pushed to the brink.
Laredo’s mayor worries for migrants’ safety, noting Laredo does not have a permanent pediatric intensive care unit, he said.
“I don’t want to see any child get gravely ill and not be able to treat them,” Treviño said.
Yuma, Arizona, has seen daily migrant arrivals climb in the last month from 300 to 1,000 or more, Mayor Douglas Nicholls said. He wants a federal emergency declaration to provide “not just money but resources on the ground,” he told reporters Thursday.
“A full response by (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) and the National Guard, like they would in any other disaster where they provide boots on the ground for housing, food, transportation, and health care – that would be the beginning,” Nichols said.
The border crisis was “avoidable for a long time” – if immigration reform been put in place – Treviño said. Now, his community is paying a price.
“At the end of the day, what has always been a federal problem for decades now has become a local problem for our border communities,” Treviño said.
Texas National Guard members stand along a stretch of razor wire as migrants try to cross into the United States on the banks of the Rio Grande, as seen from Matamoros, Mexico, on Thursday, May 11. Fernando Llano/AP A US Border Patrol agent looks on as migrants wait to apply for asylum between two border walls near San Diego on Thursday, May 11. Gregory Bull/AP Migrants surrender to US Border Patrol agents at the border in Yuma, Arizona, on May 11. Eric Thayer/Bloomberg/Getty Images Erick Torres and his son Benjamin, migrants from Peru, wait to be processed by US Border Patrol agents in Yuma on May 11. Adriana Zehbrauskas/The New York Times/Redux Migrants board a bus after surrendering to US Border Patrol agents in Yuma on May 11. Eric Thayer/Bloomberg/Getty Images Migrants cross the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Mexico, toward Texas on Wednesday, May 10. Meridith Kohut/The New York Times/Redux Norma Garcia Bonilla, from Michoacán, Mexico, waits at Albergue del Desierto, a migrant shelter in Mexicali, Mexico, across from the California border, on May 10. She is seeking asylum in the United States. Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images Hundreds of migrants in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, wait to cross into the United States on May 10. David Peinado Romero/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Migrants carry a baby in a suitcase across the Rio Grande toward Texas from Matamoros on May 10. Fernando Llano/AP Migrants wait to be processed by US Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas, after crossing from Ciudad Juárez on May 10. Herika Martinez/AFP/Getty Images Venezuelan migrants rest in a tent outside the Central Bank of Honduras in Tegucigalpa on May 10. They were waiting to withdraw money to continue their journey to the United States. Orlando Sierra/AFP/Getty Images A migrant tears up behind a border wall near San Diego on May 10. Mike Blake/Reuters Members of the Texas National Guard are deployed to an area of high migrant crossings in Brownsville, Texas, on May 10. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Wendy Velasquez and her 21-month-old daughter. Starley Dominguez Velasquez, have been living for five months at the Albergue del Desierto migrant shelter in Mexicali. They came from Honduras to apply for asylum in the United States. Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images Migrants wait to get paid after washing cars at a gas station in Brownsville on May 10. They had arrived the day before from Mexico. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images Migrants surrender to US Border Patrol agents after crossing the border in Yuma on May 10. Eric Thayer/Bloomberg/Getty Images Migrants cross the Rio Grande from Matamoros on May 10. Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images Migrants gather between primary and secondary border fences near San Diego on May 10. Mike Blake/Reuters Migrants stand in line as they wait to be processed by US Border Patrol agents in Brownsville on May 10. Joe Raedle/Getty Images A migrant climbs over a border wall separating Tijuana, Mexico, from the United States after fetching groceries for other migrants who were waiting to be processed by US authorities on May 10. Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images A heart-shaped keychain with a photo of Salvadoran migrant Danilo Ruiz and his family hangs from a handbag at a makeshift shelter in Reynosa, Mexico, on Tuesday, May 9. Fernando Llano/AP Migrant families cross into El Paso from Mexico on Monday, May 8. John Moore/Getty Images A woman is helped off a freight train after she became too scared to climb down from the roof on Sunday, May 7. Migrants have been traveling on top of freight trains as they headed north from southern Mexico. The woman's son, Leonardo Luzardo, told CNN it had been a long, cold night atop the train, feeling like their bodies were turning to ice. "It seemed like we were going to freeze," he said. Evelio Contreras/CNN A US Border Patrol agent watches over migrants who had gathered in San Diego on May 8. Mike Blake/Reuters The Mexican National Guard patrols an open section of the border wall in Tijuana on Saturday, May 6. Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images A mother holds her sleeping sons as they rest next to a gas station in Brownsville on May 6. She was waiting for her brother, who lives in Los Angeles, to buy them bus tickets so they could continue their trip into the United States to meet him. Moisés Ávila/AFP/Getty Images A migrant holds a passport in Brownsville before he was sent back to Mexico under Title 42 on Friday, May 5. Veronica G. Cardenas/AP Migrants who were trying to evade US Border Patrol agents wait to be processed in Granjeno, Texas, on May 4. Veronica G. Cardenas/AP Migrants wait in line at a processing center in Brownsville on May 4. Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images Children play soccer at a shelter in Tijuana on May 3. Their families were awaiting the end of Title 42. Matthew Bowler/KPBS/Sipa/AP Migrants camp out in an alley behind the Sacred Heart Church in downtown El Paso on April 30. Paul Ratje/Reuters Migrants in the alley behind Sacred Heart Church rest their feet on pizza boxes on April 30. Paul Ratje/Reuters Migrants wait to be processed by US Border Patrol agents in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on April 26. Paul Ratje/Reuters In pictures: The surge at the US-Mexico border Prev Next
Biden administration plans policy changes
A court ruling late Thursday took away a tool the Biden administration had intended to use to manage the number of migrants in US Customs and Border Protection custody. A federal judge in Florida temporarily blocked the administration from releasing migrants from border patrol without court notices; the administration is expected to appeal.
The administration had prepared to release some apprehended migrants without court dates amid immense strain on border facilities, according to the Department of Homeland Security. It has previously done so when facing a surge of migrants after they’re screened and vetted by authorities.
The judge’s decision came in response to an emergency motion from Florida, which has previously taken issue with the release of migrants from custody. A preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled for May 19, according to the judge’s order.
Customs and Border Protection will comply with the order, it said early Friday, but called it a “harmful ruling that will result in unsafe overcrowding at CBP facilities and undercut our ability to efficiently process and remove migrants, and risks creating dangerous conditions for border patrol agents and migrants.”
Migrants describe long, grueling wait at the U.S. Border 05:57 - Source: CNN
As Title 42 let border authorities swiftly turn away migrants at the US-Mexico border – often depriving them of the chance to claim asylum and dramatically cutting down on border processing time – it also carried almost no legal consequences for migrants crossing, meaning if they were pushed back, they could try to cross again and again.
Now, US officials will lean more on the decades-old Title 8, under which migrants could face more severe consequences for crossing the border unlawfully, such as being barred from entering the US for at least five years, they’ve said.
While Title 8 carries more legal consequences, including prosecution for those caught a second time, processing times under that authority take longer than Title 42 expulsions and could strain already pinched resources.
Title 8 allows for migrants to seek asylum, which can be a lengthy and drawn-out process that begins with what’s called a credible-fear screening by asylum officers before migrants’ cases wend through immigration courts.
The administration is also introducing new measures. A new regulation going into effect this week would largely ban migrants who traveled through other countries on their way to the US-Mexico border from applying for asylum in the United States – with some exceptions.
The rule, proposed earlier this year, will presume migrants are ineligible for asylum in the US if they didn’t first seek refuge in a country they transited through, like Mexico, on the way to the border. Migrants who secure an appointment through the Customs and Border Protection One app will be exempt, according to officials.
The State Department plans eventually to open around 100 regional processing centers in the Western Hemisphere and “in the coming days” expects to launch an online platform for immigrants to make appointments, Homeland Security officials said.
The rule is a necessary measure to stem the flow of migration while offering other legal pathways for migrants to come to the US, Biden administration officials have said. But the ACLU in its lawsuit disagreed:
“The Biden administration’s new ban places vulnerable asylum seekers in grave danger and violates US asylum laws. We’ve been down this road before with Trump,” Katrina Eiland, managing attorney with the nonprofit’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement. “The asylum bans were cruel and illegal then, and nothing has changed now.”
The ACLU, along with the ACLU of Northern California, the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies and the National Immigrant Justice Center sued in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
The Biden administration is also rolling out a new program for migrant families released in the United States to track them as they go through a speedy deportation process, including a measure that would require they stay under home confinement, sources familiar with the plans said.
Source: CNN
