In the midst of an anticipated spike at the southern border, a caravan of around 1,000 migrants is getting ready to enter the US following a risky months-long journey from Central America.
The group, which is mostly from Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, is seeking to enter the nation when Title 42, which enlarged the deportation of migrants due to Covid fears, expires next week.
The migrants are gathering beside the Rio Grande in Juarez, where some are begging with border officials for refuge while they spend the night in shelters.
But with over 5,000 migrants being detained in the Central Processing Center, which is only designed to accommodate 3,500 people temporarily, Border Patrol facilities and shelters are already overcrowded.
Officials from the Chihuahua state had halted the most recent caravan in Jimenez on Thursday and warned them that Juarez was already close to breaking.
However, the gang kept moving toward the border town across from El Paso, Texas.
According to El Paso Matters, Marjorie and her son, who is six years old, were among those forming the line across the El Paso side of the Rio Grande.
As some crossed back into Juarez to bring back food and drink while they waited in line, others huddled around fires to remain warm.
‘I am devastated with threats in my country and I am traumatized from the abduction here,’ Carmen, a 29-year-old Peruvian lady, said.
“All I want is to go to a secure location,” she said. That is all we are requesting.
On December 3, kidnappers in Durango targeted some of the migrants in the traveling group.
The party was stopped by men dressed as police officers, who led them to a residence and detained them there against their will for six days while robbing them of their possessions.
The Mexican military ultimately came to their aid, but they were unable to recover the money, passports, and phones that had been taken.
With Title 42 scheduled to expire on December 21, officials are seeing a flood of immigration at the southern border.
According to estimates, 2.4 million individuals have been turned away at the border since March 2020 as a result of the epidemic after Title 42 was broadened under Donald Trump to enable for the quick deportation of migrants.
The public health order was declared illegal by a court last month, and it is now scheduled to expire the next week while the government considers an appeal.
‘The government respectfully disagrees with this Court’s ruling and would argue on appeal, as it has argued in this Court, that CDC’s Title 42 Orders were constitutional,’ the Justice Department said.
According to sources speaking to Fox News, an estimated 485,000 migrants have entered the US since October, and by the weekend, that figure is anticipated to rise to 500,000.
The numbers represent a significant increase from this time last year, when 517,000 immigrants had entered the US between October 1 and December 31.
Border officers worry that the elimination of Title 42 might cause further disruption given the rising number of migrants.
Just hours after being bussed out of the US and back over the border with a police escort, hundreds of migrants were seen on tape entering the US illegally from Juárez last evening.
Long queues of migrants waiting to cross the border were seen in video taken by a reporter on the banks of the Rio Grande on the El Paso side of the border.
After Customs and Border Protection transported hundreds of people back over the border into Mexico by bus while providing a police escort, some may have previously been in the US earlier in the weekend.
Many of them returned after being freed, having already crossed the Rio Grande twice.
In order to stop the flow of immigration, U.S. authorities have proposed a variety of harsh measures, including prosecuting more adults who attempt to elude Border Patrol and removing those who have not previously asked for lawful entrance or protection in another country, according to Axios.
After shelter capacity was filled in November, El Paso discharged around 2,000 migrants into the streets.
According to CBS4, this past weekend alone saw the release of almost 800 migrants into El Paso from federal detention.
On Saturday, 286 migrants were freed, and on Sunday, 498 more.
The “provisional release” is a “safe and humanitarian release of migrants, who are put into removal proceedings and are awaiting the following stages in their immigration procedure,” according to officials.
The immigrants were dealt with and are now free to stay in the country as they wait for their immigration hearings.
El Paso’s deputy city manager, Mario D’Agostino, informed city officials last week that their community couldn’t be ready for the conclusion of Title 42 on December 21.
It’s in poor condition. D’Agostino, who is in charge of the city’s reaction to the migrant issue, said, “I mean, we may see up to thousands a day traveling through our village.”
When Title 42, the CDC health limitation from the Covid period that permits instant deportation, expires in ten days, the terrible scenario that might result, according to D’Agostino, became more apparent after speaking with FEMA this week.
There are no adequate shelters for that; nobody could keep up with it. According to CBS 4, D’Agostino cautioned that it would need an all-out effort, most of which would fall on the federal government to the extent that they could assist in decompressing our region.
El Paso authorities are now impatiently awaiting the federal cash they have asked for to be ready for the end of the pandemic-era program.
If they continue with street releases and are unable to locate housing, we will have to step in. “That extra funds will be for when Title 42 is removed.” But we have been requesting the cash, and we still do,” D’Agostino added.
The administration has also said that a new rule to replace Title 42 is being developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC, however, said in April that there was no longer a valid public health justification for restricting asylum.
According to the CDC, “a suspension of the authority to introduce such covered noncitizens is no longer essential to safeguard U.S. citizens” based on “the public health landscape, the present state of the COVID-19 epidemic, and the processes in place for the processing of covered noncitizens.”
When the COVID-19 epidemic first broke out, the limitations were placed in place by previous President Donald Trump.
The procedure, which has been used to kick out immigrants more than 2.4 million times, was made legal under Title 42 of a larger public health statute passed in 1944.
Given the influx of migrants crossing the border from the so-called “Northern Triangle” nations of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador through Mexico, the Biden Administration has used the strategy to deport even more migrants than the previous administration.
Since taking office as president in January 2021, Biden has not been to the border.
»1,000 migrants line the Rio Grande as Title 42 expires«