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The El Paso mayor declared a state of emergency over an influx of migrants flooding over the Texas border.
In a press conference on Saturday, Democratic Mayor Oscar Leeser said the city is expecting a spike in migrant arrivals after a Covid-era border restriction called Title 42 expires on Dec. 21.
“We know the influx on Wednesday will be incredible. It will be huge. Talking to some of our federal partners, they really believe our numbers will go from 2,500 to four, five or maybe six thousand,” Leeser said.
Title 42 had allowed the Dept. of Homeland Security to excel the majority of migrants arriving at the border, which had dissuaded non-Mexican migrants, many of whom from Venezuela and even Haiti, from skipping over Mexico to try and claim asylum in the United States.
“U.S. border agents have encountered an average of more than 2,400 migrants per day in a 268-mile stretch of the border known as the El Paso Sector over the past week, according to figures published by the city, a 40% increase compared with October,” Reuters reported. “Even as government officials move migrants in El Paso to other U.S. cities, local shelters are beyond capacity and migrants have been sleeping on the streets as temperatures dip below freezing.”
In related news, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state of Texas will finish the Trump-era border wall itself after making deals with private land owners.
“More border wall is going up next month,” he announced. “It took months to negotiate with private property owners on the border for the right to build on their property.”
“We now should be building more border wall all of next year.”