CNN
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With US officials fearing the expiration of a Trump-era border restriction this week will spur a surge of migrants, the federal government estimates that about 152,000 migrants were waiting in shelters and streets in northern Mexican states bordering the US over the weekend, a source familiar with federal estimates told CNN.
That includes 60,000 migrants in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, 35,000 in Tamaulipas and 25,000 in Coahuila, the source said Monday.
Beyond the northern border states, the federal government estimates hundreds of thousands of migrants were in the “pipeliine” in southern Mexico and Central American countries, the source said.
Title 42 – a 2020 policy that officials said was an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19 – has allowed US authorities to swiftly expel migrants encountered at the southern border, with some exceptions. It’s set to lapse on Thursday, along with the nation’s coronavirus public health emergency.
The policy has been controversial in part because immigrant rights advocates argued officials were using public health as a pretext to keep as many migrants out of the country as possible. But federal officials have warned its expiration could greatly increase the number of migrants trying to cross into the US and exacerbate an already challenging humanitarian crisis at the southern border.
Communities along the US-Mexico border already are seeing an increase in migrant arrivals.
Encounters between US border agents and migrants climbed in recent days, surpassing more than 8,000 daily, a Homeland Security official said. That number could reach around 10,000 after Title 42 lifts, the official said.
Many heading to the US are making long treks in hopes of making it across the border in search of a better, safer life for their families.
“I want to be happy. I want to bring my son over. I want to live a life where we don’t suffer from mistreatment for violence,” migrant Kimberly Sanchez told CNN affiliate KGTV.
US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has stressed that federal officials have been preparing for the end of Title 42 and are ready.
The Biden administration is deploying 1,500 active-duty troops to the border – to support border agents in administrative roles, not law enforcement – for 90 days, sources familiar with the planning told CNN. The government also is “surging resources” to “effect a greater number of removals every week,” Mayorkas said last week.
Mayorkas made a direct appeal on Friday to migrants traveling to the border: “The border is not open; it has not been open; and it will not be open subsequent to May 11.”
But in border communities, signs of an influx have already materialized.
In Tijuana, Mexico, about 6,000 migrants were waiting in shelters, in homes and other areas of the city bordering San Diego, California, according to Enrique Lucero, Tijuana’s director of migrant affairs.
“We are at the brink of a humanitarian crisis,” Lucero said this week.
An increasing number of migrants are deciding to jump the border fence and swimming across the border, Lucero said. Yet shelters’ numbers don’t drop because more migrants arrive each day, and some are of nationalities he’s never seen represented there before, including from places like Kazakhstan, Mauritania, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Shelters are already beyond capacity and if the situation doesn’t improve once Title 42 lifts, Tijuana could be in crisis, Lucero said.
To the east, in El Paso, Texas – a city that’s under a state of emergency – thousands of migrants have been living on the streets for days. About 1,200 migrants were living on the streets around Sacred Heart Church on Sunday morning, according to the Rev. Rafael Garcia.
A sudden influx of migrants also prompted an emergency declaration last month in the Texas city of Brownsville, which is mourning eight people killed when a car plowed into a crowd outside a shelter that has been hosting migrants.
The spike started about a week and a half ago and the nonprofit organization “Team Brownsville” has been receiving about 1,000 migrants per day at its respite center, according to Sergio Cordova, one of the founders.
Starting Tuesday, federal authorities will conduct an enforcement operation in El Paso, targeting migrants who crossed the US-Mexico border and were not processed by officials, according to multiple sources familiar with the operation.
Enforcement action will not be taken around so-called “protected areas,” like churches or places where enforcement would restrict access to essential services, as is common under Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidance, the department said.
Some migrant families told CNN they had been waiting months for the right time to enter the US, setting up makeshift tent encampments on the streets of Ciudad Juárez, which straddles the border near El Paso, Texas.
“I want to cross, but not illegally,” said Janeysi Games, who reached Ciudad Juárez with her husband and daughter after taking a series of trains.
Sergio Arias, one of many migrants gathered at a makeshift campground along the border at San Diego’s San Ysidro area, said he made the journey to be able to live in safety, KGTV reported.
“Here, we can have a better future,” Arias told the station.
Many migrants are opting to stay out in the street near the border rather than in shelters, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser told CNN Monday.
“They don’t want to miss that opportunity to come to the United States because they’re under the false pretense that if they get here before Title 42 expires, they’ll be able to stay here. And that is not the case,” Leeser said. “The borders are closed today and the borders will be closed after Title 42 expires.”
Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are the nations of origin officials encounter most among migrants at the southwest US land border, according to Customs and Border Protection. Border officials have also recently reported encountering many Venezuelan nationals in the Rio Grande Valley sector.
Poor economic conditions, violence, food shortages and limited access to health care are increasingly pushing Venezuelans to leave the country amid a socioeconomic crisis fueled by President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian government – conditions that have been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic and US sanctions. More than 7 million Venezuelans are now living as refugees or migrants outside their country, according to government data from the United Nations, making it the second-largest external displacement crisis in the world.
US officials have grappled with a dramatic spike in Venezuelans crossing the US-Mexico border, in part because frosty relations between the US and Venezuela make them difficult to remove. Last October, the Biden administration announced that authorities would start sending Venezuelans apprehended at the border back into Mexico, while also creating a legal pathway and screening process for 24,000 Venezuelans with US ties to enter the country at ports of entry.
In January, the administration expanded the humanitarian parole program to other nationalities – Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua – in an effort to try to manage the flow of migration ahead of the anticipated end of Title 42.
When Title 42 lifts, 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. Asylum seekers who cross the border without first applying for asylum could be removed under that Title 8 authority.
Under Title 8, if they attempt to cross again, they can face criminal prosecution, and the DHS promised these migrants will be removed from the US will be removed quickly and efficiently.
While Title 8 carries more legal consequences especially for those caught a second time, processing times under that authority take longer than Title 42 expulsions and could strain already pinched resources and create a bottleneck at a time of heavy mass migration.
Even while Title 42 was in place, border officials still were apprehending migrants at the border under Title 8.
More than 1.15 million people were apprehended under Title 8 at the southern land border in fiscal year 2022, according to the US Customs and Border Protection.
That same period, more than 1.05 million people were expelled under Title 42 at the southern land border, according to CBP.
