Title 42 has ended. Although tens of thousands of illegal immigrants surged the area in the days and weeks leading up to the end of the Trump-era pandemic public health safety policy, on the day of reckoning, attempted border crossings seemed to dip slightly. The crisis is far from over, however. Some say it has only just begun.
Biden’s Border Plans Thwarted in the 11th Hour
President Joe Biden is balancing precariously on the tip of a needle as his own party accuses his policy of requiring migrants to prove they sought asylum in another state before entering the US as being just as bad as his predecessor’s. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, just hours before Title 42 expired, tried to encourage Americans and defend the commander-in-chief. “This is a challenge, and we are going to meet this challenge,” he said. “The transition to Title 8 processing will be swift and immediate. We have surged 24,000 Border Patrol agents and officers, thousands of troops, contractors, and over 1,000 asylum officers and judges to see this through.”
But perhaps the administration did not consider a federal judge would block them from their plan to “parole” migrants crossing into Texas from the southern border. US District Judge T. Kent Wetherell, II ordered the government to stand down. Mayorkas told MSNBC on Friday, May 12, that this was a “very harmful ruling, attacking a practice that prior administrations have used,” and that the Justice Department is “considering options.”
Judge Wetherell, however, wrote that the policy “appeared to conflict with a decision from the court in a separate case earlier this year,” USA Today explained. If it had not been struck down, effective at 11:59 p.m. on May 11, Customs and Border Protection said they would have paroled “certain people without what’s known as a notice to appear, essentially a charging document because those documents take additional time to prepare.” DHS told the court on Thursday, May 11: “At the current operational pace, and without any additional measures … USBP would have over 45,000 individuals in custody by the end of the month.” The agency continued:
“Border Patrol is not resourced to manage the level of encounters currently occurring across the Southwest Border, and the U.S. Congress provided less than half of the $4.9 billion that DHS requested to prepare for the lifting of Title 42.”
“The Southwest Border has been out of control for the past 2 years,” Judge Wetherell wrote. “And it is about to get worse because, at midnight tonight, the Title 42 order expires.”
Republicans Pass Secure the Border Act
Although it must still face a Democrat-controlled Senate and the veto Biden has promised, should it cross his desk, the Secure the Border Act is another thorn in the president’s side. Also approved by the GOP just before Title 42 ended, the act would place more restrictions on asylum seekers and include building a border wall.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy explained the legislation in a statement:
“H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, delivers on our Commitment to America to end this crisis. Our plan will increase the number of Border Patrol agents, provide effective border enforcement technology, resume construction of the border wall, and end the administration’s catch and release policy.”
Another aspect of the bill is the use of electronic verification for migrant workers to make sure only those legally in the country would be allowed to work, which many are concerned will affect the agriculture industry.
A surge of Latin American migrants seeking work were hired quickly in recent years “by employers desperate for workers in sectors such as food service and construction, at higher pay and under better working conditions, than at any time in recent memory,” The Wall Street Journal emphasized. “The World Bank estimates remittances to Latin America grew more than 9% in 2022 to $142 billion.”
When it was first introduced in April, there was concern that the bill wouldn’t get enough party votes because some moderate Republicans worried the bill would eliminate asylum. And now, with the return of Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), there may be even more opposition. In a statement, the White House denounced the bill, claiming, “Because this bill does very little to actually increase border security while doing a great deal to trample on the Nation’s core values and international obligations, it should be rejected.” But McCarthy disagreed, essentially saying seeing is believing, and since Republican lawmakers took the time to visit the border and gauge the crisis, they were more in tune with what needed to be done. “If you’re going to write a bill about the border, you ought to learn firsthand,” he said during a press conference. “We identified the problem rather than ignoring it. We listened to the American people. Then we took action.”
The Migrant Crisis
“We’re boarding up like there were a hurricane coming,” Victor Treviño, the mayor of Laredo, Texas, told CNN Thursday evening. As Title 42 flickered out, around 60,000 migrants were waiting near the US-Mexico border, an official told CBS News. As of May 11, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said nearly 25,000 migrants were in holding facilities and tents. “We are over capacity in several of the sectors,” he admitted, which is why the agency started releasing migrants they vetted and cleared as posing no “significant threat to the community.”
With overcrowding and understaffing a serious issue, the plight of immigrants and Americans becomes more dangerous. On Friday, officials confirmed the death of a 17-year-old migrant from Honduras who arrived without a parent. As of May 10, HHS had 8,681 unaccompanied children who spend an average of 29 days in custody. “Border Patrol officials encountered more than 152,000 unaccompanied minors in fiscal year 2022, and have encountered more than 70,000 since Oct. 1, 2022,” CBS reported. The increase in numbers, some say, may be attributed to a federal judge’s decision to allow children the practice of “self-separation.” As CBS explained:
“Unaccompanied children were subject to expulsion under Title 42 until November 2020, when a federal judge put an end to the practice. Their exemption led thousands of children who had previously been expelled with their families to leave their loved ones in Mexico and attempt to claim asylum by themselves, a phenomenon that came to be known as ‘self-separation.’ Government figures showed that more than 12,000 migrant children reentered U.S. border custody as unaccompanied minors after being expelled to Mexico in the year following the judge’s ruling.”
This becomes even more worrisome since unaccompanied minors are exempt from the asylum rule, so some fear families may send their children to the US alone.
Responses Across the Aisle
Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted: “Great work by Texas National Guard and Texas DPS. Biden sent 1,500 troops to the border to do paperwork. Texas deployed trained soldiers and troopers to take real action and respond to this crisis.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted: “Horrific and cruel. The #BidenBorderCrisis is a deliberate political decision from Biden, Harris and every congressional Dem.”
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) told CNN that “the situation at the border is as chaotic as Afghanistan was … The administration came back and said they were happy with it. This meets their needs, and it is an embarrassment.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) warned that, in the coming days, Americans will hear “about the MASSIVE catastrophe at our southern border, but what you won’t hear is the folks who created this mess taking responsibility and fixing it.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blamed Republicans on Friday during a press conference, saying:
“Republican-elected officials continue to play games here. They continue to have political stunts and they don’t want to solve this problem. They want to use it as a campaign tool for them …
“We’ve been seeing from Republican officials over and over again for the past several months, instead of trying to deal with the issue or talking to the federal government on how to deal with the issue in their state and their city, they don’t do that. They actually sabotage what we’re trying to do.”
Meanwhile, in the mostly Democratic neighborhood of South Shore, Chicago, residents expressed their upset at having 500 illegal immigrants housed in their community, RedState reported. During a townhall meeting, a local wardswoman proclaimed that “the border crisis was not South Shore’s crisis while others demanded to know why they weren’t informed of the resettlements.” And then, on Friday, a large protest rally was held during which one of the speakers cited “what sounds awful like ‘replacement theory’ as a reason the illegal immigrants shouldn’t be allowed in their neighborhood,” referring to giving illegals the right to vote and change their citizen dynamics.
And, finally, former President Donald Trump released a video on Twitter saying the Biden administration has “turned the United States into a dumping ground for illegal aliens from all over the world. We’ve become a third world nation.”
All opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Liberty Nation.
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