Should, uh, should we be worried? I feel like we should be worried.
In the middle of the West Texas desert, a giant tent — bigger than a football field — is being thrown up by the US Border Patrol as El Paso prepares for a human tidal wave to cross the border with Mexico as soon as the Title 42 health policy comes to an end.
The makeshift facility northeast of downtown will serve as an overflow processing center when Title 42 expires — which could happen as soon as this week, depending on whether the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the Biden administration from 19 Republican-led states who want to keep the policy in place.
The Border Patrol already has a Central Processing Center in El Paso, but it will not be able to meet the demand post-Title 42 – when as many as 5,000 migrants per day are anticipated to enter the city.
You're reading that correctly: 5,000 illegal immigrants per day.
Title 42, you may be aware, is a Trump-era border policy that allowed agents to expel illegal immigrants due to the public health threat posed by COVID-19. The Biden administration has moved to end the program, and a federal judge has ordered its suspension; the problem may come to an end this week.
And when it does:
El Paso officials have previously said as many as 20,000 migrants are waiting in Mexico, hoping to gain entry into the US after Title 42 goes away. ...
On Monday, 400 armed Texas National Guard members and their Humvees were stationed on either side of that bridge, hoping to funnel migrants onto the span and avoid potential chaos if migrants wade across the Rio Grande, which acts as the international boundary between the US and Mexico.
Despite the beefed-up enforcement, thousands of migrants are already in El Paso, forcing the city of almost 680,000 to turn its convention center into a migrant shelter.
