The pace of arrivals in Brownsville appeared to catch the city on the southernmost tip of Texas off guard, stretching social services and putting an overnight shelter in an uncommon position of turning people away. Officials say more than 15,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have illegally crossed the river near Brownsville since last week.

That is a sharp rise from the 1,700 migrants that Border Patrol agents encountered in the first two weeks of April, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.

“It’s a quite concerning because the logistical challenge that we encounter is massive for us,” said Gloria Chavez, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol Rio Grande Valley Sector.

Immigration Apr 27

Biden Plan Aims to Stem Border Migration as Restrictions End

Immigration Apr 7

US to Test Expedited Asylum Screenings at Mexico Border

The reason for the increase was not immediately clear. Chavez said migrants have been frustrated by relying on a glitch-plagued government app that can allow them to seek asylum at a port of entry. Some migrants who crossed this week cited other motivators, including cartel threats that immediately preceded the sudden increment.

The uptick comes as the Biden administration plans for the end of pandemic-era asylum restrictions. U.S. authorities have said daily illegal crossings from Mexico could climb as high as 13,000 from about 5,200 in March.

Other cities — some far away from the southern U.S. border — are also grappling with suddenly large influxes of migrants. In Chicago, authorities reported this week a tenfold increase in the arrival of migrants in the city, where as many as 100 migrants have begun arriving daily and begun sheltering in police stations.

Brownsville is across the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Mexico, where a sprawling encampment of makeshift tents has housed about 2,000 people waiting to enter the U.S.

Last week, some tents were set ablaze and destroyed. Some migrants have said cartel-backed gangs were responsible, but a government official suggested the fires could have been set by a group of migrants frustrated over their long wait.

“It was desperation, the cartel,” said Roxana Aguirre, 24, a Venezuelan migrant who sat outside a Brownsville bus station Friday afternoon. “You couldn’t be on the street without looking over your shoulder.”

In downtown Brownsville, families from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti and China walked aimlessly, carrying their belongings and talking on their cellphones.

Some waited for their buses while others were in limbo, waiting for relatives before making plans to leave but finding no shelter in the meantime. One Venezuelan couple said they slept in a parking lot after being turned away at an overnight shelter.

Officials in Brownsville issued a disaster declaration this week, following other Texas border cities that have done the same in the face of suddenly large influxes of migrants, including last year in El Paso.

“We’ve never seen these numbers before,” said Martin Sandoval, spokesperson for the Brownsville Police Department.

The reshuffling of resources at the border — in one of the busiest sectors with robust Border Patrol staffing levels — comes as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security prepares to end the use of a public health authority known as Title 42, which allowed them to reject asylum claims.

The administration has expelled migrants 2.7 million times under a rule in effect since March 2020 that denies rights to seek asylum under U.S. and international law on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. Title 42, as the public health rule is known, is scheduled to end May 11 when the U.S. lifts its last COVID-related restrictions.

Texas state Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler, Dist. 6) filed HB 20 on Friday. The bill was read for the first time Monday and referred to the House Committee on State Affairs. The bill has not yet been voted on by the House and, as such, has not been passed to the Senate for consideration.

Civil rights organizations, immigration advocates and Democrats immediately decried the proposals, which began drawing attention after Friday’s deadline for filing bills in Texas’ ongoing biennial legislative session.

“I think the underlying fact that it is going to allow people to question our being American in our border communities and across Texas is unacceptable,” said Texas state Rep. Victoria Neave Criado (D-Dallas, Dist. 107), chairwoman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus.

Since President Joe Biden took office, illegal crossings have soared. Many migrants have surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol agents and were released in the U.S. to pursue their cases in federal immigration court.

The Republican proposals in the Texas Legislature would continue pushing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s massive, $4 billion border mission known as Operation Lone Star. That has included the governor heavily increasing patrols near the border with Mexico, gridlocking traffic with increased commercial truck inspections, and building more barriers along the international boundary, echoing former President Donald Trump‘s unfished campaign promise.

The effort also has included directing officers to detain migrants who trespass on private property and bused thousands of migrants to Democrat-led cities, including New York and Washington, D.C. The moves have put a spotlight on Abbott, who aides say is weighing a run for president.

Bills filed this session would allow a newly created unit of state police to arrest, detain and deter people crossing into Texas illegally, construct more and maintain existing barriers between Texas and Mexico and return immigrants to Mexico if they are seen crossing into Texas.

State border officers would serve at the direction of a chief, who would be appointed by the governor. According to a draft bill, which will have to pass reviews by both of the state’s Republican-controlled legislative chambers before the end of May, the chief will be able to employ licensed state and local police officers to serve on the border force, as well as “law-abiding citizens” without felony convictions.

Private citizens employed by the force would be allowed to participate in “unit operations and functions” and have the same criminal and civil liability immunity on the job as licensed officers. But, they will not have arresting power, unless trained and authorized by the governor, according to the bill’s current form.

People arrested for crossing into Texas illegally would face up to 10 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines for each violation.

The proposal cites a U.S. constitutional clause on state powers when facing invasion and imminent danger and follows numerous calls from former Trump administration officials and sheriffs in several South Texas counties for Abbott to declare what they have called an “invasion” under this clause.

Neave Criado said language such as “invasion” matters and has been used by individuals such as the North Texas man who drove to El Paso and killed 23 people in a racially motivated rampage.

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, said in a statement that “addressing our state’s border and humanitarian crisis” was a priority. Phelan said the proposed border police as well as a proposed Legislative Border Safety Oversight Committee, which would provide border safety policy recommendations and oversight to the new policing unit and work on issues in South Texas, were a “must-pass issue.”

Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Civil rights organizations and state Democrats quickly denounced the legislation. The proposal also drew comparisons to a 2017 “ban on sanctuary cities” that allowed police to ask a person’s immigration status and threatened sheriffs and police chiefs with jail time if they refused to cooperate with federal authorities to enforce immigration law.

That proposal was signed into law and but was later challenged in court and is pending a resolution, according to Alexis Bay, a legislative coordinator with the Beyond Borders at the Texas Civil Rights Project.

Bay said the powers and immunity that would be conveyed to private citizens serving on the proposed border force is unlike anything seen in recent Texas history.

“It is designed to create racial profiling,” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa told The Associated Press on Monday. “Something that is just horrendous.”

A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency does not comment on pending legislation.

Tensions at the border with Mexico remain high. Over the weekend, a video showed hundreds of apparent Venezuelan migrants brush past Mexican National Guard members while trying to cross a bridge into El Paso, Texas, before being blocked by U.S. agents.

Authorities said Sunday that at least eight people were killed when two migrant smuggling boats capsized off the coast of San Diego in one of the deadliest maritime human smuggling operations ever off of U.S. shores.

A relative said Monday that the group had traveled together from South Carolina so one of them could get a tummy tuck from a doctor in the border city of Matamoros when they got caught in a deadly shootout between drug cartel factions and were kidnapped.

The country has long been a popular destination for dental procedures, cancer treatments, prescription drugs and plastic surgery.

The city of Matamoros and the state of Tamaulipas have been placed under a Level Four ‘”do not travel” advisory by the U.S. State Department.

At Couture Lounge by Vee, owner Virginia Gutierrez says the tragedy in Matamoros has been top of mind.

“Yes, because it doesn’t make sense to me like how did that even happen,” said Gutierrez. “It’s pretty crazy I’m trying to see what the story is only because I also went to Mexico to get my body done as well.”

Gutierrez says she never felt unsafe on her two trips to Tijuana thanks in part to shuttle service to and from San Diego.

“I think that’s a priority for them especially when you’re traveling from outside the country and you’re going with a clinic,” said Gutierrez.

Gutierrez is one of the hundreds of thousands of medical tourists lured across the border for low-cost medical care from dental to weight loss surgery and prescription drugs.

Without health insurance, Diane Orban of Whitney, Texas, also opted to go to Tijuana for gastric sleeve surgery. “You’re treated like the queen like you’re the only person there it’s amazing,” she said.

Orban shopped around before deciding to go to Mexico for surgery.

“The least expensive route I found was about $11,000. Tijuana was $5,800.”

Orban says she went alone, and never had any apprehension.

“The tourists are their source of income and they are on their game it was never an unsafe feeling when I was there,” said Orban.

As authorities work to find all of the gunmen and kidnappers, family members of the surviving victims, Latavia McGee and Eric Williams, are speaking about the traumatic ordeal.

“I was overwhelmed with emotion. I was very happy to find out he was okay. I was totally relieved,” said Williams.

Tarleton University criminologist Alex del Carmen says the violent kidnapping last week should serve as a reminder of the potential dangers Americans face.

“As soon as they cross the border they’re being spotted by people on the border as being Americans coming into the Mexican territory and when they see Americans they see dollars,” he said.

Del Carmen says anyone considering medical tourism to Mexico should take steps to insure their safety.

“Make sure your cell works when you cross the border to make sure your loved ones know exactly where you are going,” del Carmen said. “Once you are abducted, once you’re inside that vehicle, the chances of survivability diminish tremendously.”

Gutierrez and Orban urge anyone considering crossing the border for medical reasons to choose their destination carefully.

“Research who you’re going with,” said Gutierrez. Both were bussed to and from San Diego and never encountered a single problem.

They also caution not to take chances. “If you know that you’re going to an area that’s known not to be safe – don’t go,” said Orban.

The State Department offers the following tips to anyone who decided to travel to high-risk areas:

• Enroll in the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP).
• Draft a will and designate beneficiaries and power of attorney.
• Discuss your plan with loved ones and manage your affairs before you travel.
• Learn how to use your phone to share your location with friends and family while abroad.
• Develop a communication plan with friends, family and your employer so they can monitor your safety and location.
• Know about the U.S. Embassy or Consulate, FBI and State Department’s Office of American Citizen Services.
• Appoint a family member to serve as the point of contact with hostage-takers, the media, U.S. and Mexican agencies as well as Members of Congress if you are taken or detained.
• Establish proof of life protocols with loved ones.
• Leave DNA samples with your medical provider and make sure your family can access them.

The round table discussion will be with state officials and law enforcement to discuss ways to secure the Texas southern border.

Abbott was expected to be joined by State Sen. Brian Birdwell (R-Fort Worth, Dist. 22), State Rep. Ryan Guillen (R-Rio Grande City, Dist. 31), Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, Adjutant General of the Texas Military Department Major General Thomas Suelzer, and Border Czar Mike Banks.

Security on the southern border has been an ongoing topic throughout Abbott’s term in office.

It’s believed to be the first time that a Guard member deployed on a state border mission called Operation Lone Star has injured another person by firing a weapon. The migrant’s injuries weren’t life-threatening.

The Jan. 15 shooting came to light last week after it was first reported by the Texas Tribune and then syndicated by the Army Times. The Texas Military Department did not respond to questions about how many times Guard members have fired a weapon since the mission began in 2021.

The handling of the shooting – described in an internal military report obtained by The Associated Press – has raised transparency concerns surrounding a $4 billion state-run border security operation that has grown in size and authority under Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. As of Tuesday, military officials had still not addressed questions about what happened or acknowledged that a weapon was fired.

“The state and the governor are almost the first to release information on how many people might have been detained or if there had been drugs interdicted,” said Gil Kerlikowske, the former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the Obama administration. “It seems completely counterintuitive that as soon as something happens that, you know, leads to some question or concern there is radio silence. That’s just a fundamental mistake.”

Firearms are not commonly used among the thousands of U.S. border agents and officers who encounter migrants along the Rio Grande, and Border Patrol officials say when shots are fired, it is common practice to let the public know.

It is not clear whether the soldier fired intentionally. According to an internal military summary, the soldier followed a Border Patrol unit into an abandoned house along the Rio Grande while pursuing four migrants. One resisted apprehension, according to the report, and began punching and wrestling the Guard member, who drew a personal firearm that “discharged once” as the migrant was falling on top of him.

The migrant was shot once in the left shoulder and taken to a McAllen hospital.

The Military Department referred questions to the state police. Travis Considine, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Texas Rangers are investigating and that the agency could not provide additional information. An Abbott spokeswoman did not respond to requests for information about the shooting.

Kerlikowske and other critics, including a border Texas lawmaker who learned of the shooting through news reports, say the closely guarded details cut against what should be more openness, particularly when lethal force is used.

The border and high numbers of migrants crossing into the U.S. has become the signature issue for Abbott, who is beginning a record-tying third term as Texas governor and has not ruled out a presidential run in 2024. Lawmakers are poised to continue funding the mission, which includes roughly 5,000 Guard members, who are authorized to make arrests.,

“I’m not happy with the Texas National Guard’s lack of transparency,” said Democratic state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, whose district includes the area where the shooting occurred.

Hinojosa, a member of a state Senate committee that monitors the state’s border operation, said when his staff asked the Military Department for details they were told only that it was under investigation.

“For the lack of transparency on their part, not even notifying legislators that this incident occurred, it just creates more problems for them. People start thinking, well, they’re trying to hide something,” he said.

Rod Kise, a Border Patrol spokesman, said the “shots fired” incident was under review by Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

Under Kerlikowske, Border Patrol policy was to put out a statement within four hours and hold a news conference within 24 hours after use-of-force incidents.

Within the Border Patrol, agents in recent years have been involved in an increasing number of use-of-force incidents, although most do not include firearms. In the 2022 fiscal year, 12 instances of firearms used by Border Patrol agents were reported on the southern border, according to federal statistics.

The National Guard Bureau has been in contact with the Texas National Guard leadership over the shooting, its chief, Gen. Dan Hokanson, said Tuesday

“We’re concerned with our Guardsmen, no matter what duty status that they’re in. We’re in close coordination and communication with the Texas National Guard leadership, and I know there’s currently an ongoing investigation related to that,” Hokanson said at a Pentagon briefing.

According to a statement from the White House, Biden will travel to El Paso and “will assess border enforcement operations and meet with local elected officials and community leaders who have been important partners in managing the historical number of migrants fleeing political oppression and gang violence in Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cuba.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who has long criticized the president for his “open border policies” and for not visiting the border personally, has not yet issued a statement on the president’s visit. Vice President Kamala Harris visited El Paso, in June 2021 and was criticized for choosing a location too far from the epicenter of border crossings that were straining federal resources.

Immigration Jan 5

Biden Announces Tougher Border Restrictions and Offers Legal Pathways for 30,000 a Month

Immigration Jan 5

Biden Lays Out Immigration Reform Agenda, Urges Congress to Fund Border Programs

That border has seen massive increases in migrants even as a U.S. public health law remains in place that allows American authorities to turn away many people who are seeking asylum in the United States. Republican leaders have criticized the president for policies that they say are ineffective on border security and questioned why he has not made a trip there yet.

Immigration will be among the top talking points at the summit Monday and Tuesday when Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hosts Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Biden administration has yet to lay out any systemic changes to manage an expected surge of migrants should the restrictions end. In Congress, a bipartisan immigration bill was buried shortly before Republicans assumed control of the House.

BIDEN TOUGHENS BORDER, OFFERS LEGAL PATH FOR 30,000 PER MONTH

Biden said Thursday the U.S. would immediately begin turning away Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross the border from Mexico illegally, his boldest move yet to confront the arrivals of migrants that have spiraled since he took office two years ago.

Homeland Security officials said they would begin denying asylum to those who circumvent legal pathways and do not first ask for asylum in the country they traveled through en route to the U.S.

Instead, the U.S. will accept 30,000 people per month from the four nations for two years and offer the ability to work legally, as long as they come legally, have eligible sponsors and pass vetting and background checks. Border crossings by migrants from those four nations have risen most sharply, with no easy way to quickly return them to their home countries.

The new rules expand on an existing effort to stop Venezuelans attempting to enter the U.S., which began in October and led to a dramatic drop in Venezuelans coming to the southern border. Together, they represent a major change to immigration rules that will stand even if the Supreme Court ends a Trump-era public health law that allows U.S. authorities to turn away asylum-seekers.

“Do not, do not just show up at the border,” Biden said as he announced the changes, even as he acknowledged the hardships that lead many families to make the dangerous journey north. “Stay where you are and apply legally from there.”

Biden made the announcement Thursday, just days before the visit to El Paso.

MEXICO ARRESTS SON OF ‘EL CHAPO’ AHEAD OF BIDEN VISIT

On Thursday, Mexican security forces announced they’d captured Ovidio Guzmán, an alleged drug trafficker wanted by the United States and one of the sons of former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, in a pre-dawn operation that set off gunfights and roadblocks across the western state’s capital.

The high-profile capture comes just days before López Obrador will host U.S. President Joe Biden for bilateral talks followed by a North American Leaders’ Summit with Biden and Canadian Primer Minister Justin Trudeau. Drug trafficking, along with immigration, is expected to be a top talking point for the leaders.

The Chihuahua state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that around 7 a.m. various armored vehicles arrived at the prison and gunmen opened fire on guards. In addition to those killed, 13 people were wounded and at least 24 inmates escaped.

Mexican soldiers and state police regained control of the prison later Sunday. The state prosecutor’s office said its personnel were investigating.

In August, a riot inside the same state prison spread to the streets of Juarez in violence that left 11 people dead.

In that case, two inmates were killed inside the prison and then alleged gang members started shooting up the town, including killing four employees of a radio station who were doing a promotion at a restaurant.

Violence is frequent in Mexican prisons, including in somewhere authorities only maintain nominal control. Clashes regularly erupt among inmates of rival gangs, which in places like Juarez serve as proxies for drug cartels.

Shortly before Sunday’s attack on the prison, municipal police were attacked and managed to capture four men after a pursuit, according to the state prosecutor’s office statement. Later, police killed two alleged gunmen traveling in a SUV.

The surge of migrants crossing the border continues, however, despite the barriers and asylum restrictions that remain in place.

NBC 5 spent two days in Eagle Pass documenting the current surge of migrants. We watched as another group of weary travelers took their first steps on U.S. soil late Wednesday afternoon, surrendering to immigration officials. An agent grouped the men, women and children by nationality: Cubans, Nicaraguans and Dominicans.

A Cuban migrant sat and said a prayer of gratitude.

“I’m very happy. It was a lot of work but here we are in the Land of the Free,” she said.

Among their group is an older man with a prosthetic leg who was carried throughout their journey.

“It is a dream come true,” said another Cuban woman in near-perfect English. “I left my family behind, everything. My heart is there but my freedom is here.”

More than 1,000 migrants crossed the border from Piedras Negras, Mexico, into Eagle Pass, according to U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX 23rd District) who represents the region.

A group of 140 migrants made their trek at about 8 a.m., including a woman from Honduras who carried her five-month-old son who was born in Mexico.

A few hours later, we saw two families from Nicaragua walking along busy Highway 277 near the Maverick County line.

Abel Miranda carries his 2-year-old granddaughter in his arms. Her nose is runny and she’s wearing gloves two sizes too big. Miranda’s 11-year-old daughter walks next to him. They hope to reunite with his wife in California.

Hunger and political instability in their home country, he said, led them to risk it all.

“We’re only looking for new opportunities as human beings,” said Miranda.

Migrants who surrender to CBP agents are bussed to processing centers nearby and vetted. Some are deported while others are released with the expectation to make their case for asylum in immigration court. They are then transported to ‘non-governmental organizations’ known as NGOs.

The Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition is an NGO in Del Rio. Operations Director Tiffany Burrow said they are caring for about 400 migrants a day – serving as a brief stop for migrants to eat, phone sponsors in the U.S. and book flights or bus tickets.

The shelter then busses migrants to San Antonio where prices are often less expensive.

Burrow said they’ve received about 50,000 migrants this year alone.

Congressman Gonzales described the situation along the southern border “as if a hurricane is hitting us.”

“It’s heartbreaking. It’s frustrating,” he said. “I’m glad you’re covering the story because many Americans don’t realize what is happening on the ground.”

Gonzales said more action needs to be taken including adding court proceedings along the border and allowing asylum claims to be decided in days instead of years.

“If they do not qualify for asylum, they get sent back to their country of origin,” said Gonzales.

The Republican leader said once the immediate flow of migrants is stopped, a long-term solution should include real immigration reform with work visas but no amnesty.

Gonzales acknowledged the precarious situation facing the U.S. The current surge includes migrants from countries the U.S. has somewhat icy relationships with, including Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela. These countries, he said, are unwilling to aid in a solution, even barring their citizens from returning.

“These countries have little to no relationships, diplomatic relationships, with [the U.S.]. These countries know that and they’re allowing many of their people to go on this dangerous trek, so it is up to the State Department to have communications with these countries and have solutions or third party countries.”

Previous administrations have negotiated agreements for countries like Mexico and Guatemala to accept migrants, he said.

Gonzales is especially critical of Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“His job is to go to these foreign countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Honduras and build different packages to go: ‘You will accept your people that do not qualify for asylum’ and that hasn’t been done,” said Gonzales.

Immigration Dec 20, 2022

Here's What Could Happen to Asylum Seekers If Title 42 Is Lifted

Immigration Dec 20, 2022

In Eagle Pass, Migrants Continue to Cross Rio Grande for U.S.

Immigration Dec 21, 2022

Migrants at US-Mexico Border Await Ruling on Title 42 Asylum Restrictions

Gov. Greg Abbott is sending 400 members of the Texas National Guard to El Paso to help with border security pending the expected expiration of Title 42 on Wednesday.

The soldiers are part of a Security Response Force comprised of members of the 606th Military Police Battalion that will be flown to El Paso Monday on four C-130J aircraft from the 136th Airlift Wing located at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth.

“The Security Response Force is trained in Civil Disturbance Operations and Mass Migration Response, used to safeguard the border and repel and turn-back illegal immigrants,” the Texas Military Department said in a news release Monday. A second SRF from the 236th MP Company is on standby if needed.

Dallas Dec 18, 2022

Dallas Nonprofit and Interfaith Group Preps for Migrants to Pass Through North Texas

El Paso Dec 17, 2022

El Paso Declares State of Emergency Days Before Title 42 Expires

title 42 Dec 16, 2022

El Paso to Bus Migrants to Dallas, Houston, Other Cities With Major Airports

The TMD said the response is part of Abbott’s enhanced border security effort and “are part of a larger strategy to use every available tool to fight back against the record-breaking level of illegal immigration and transnational criminal activity.”

State officials have reported high levels of border crossings over the last week ahead of the expected expiration of Title 42 which is expected to lead to a massive influx of migrants attempting to cross the border illegally.

The Department of Homeland Security has warned reversing Title 42, “will likely increase migration flows immediately” and on Saturday, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser declared a state of emergency over the border crisis citing safety concerns for both his community and asylum seekers.

For days, large groups of migrants have gathered on the Mexican side of the U.S. border, waiting to get in. There is concern among some state or federal officials that criminals may exploit gaps in border security or slip by federal authorities processing migrants seeking asylum.

“We know that the influx on Wednesday will be incredible. They will be huge. Talking to some of our federal partners, they really believe that on Wednesday our numbers go will go from 2,500 to 4,000 or 5,000 or maybe 6,000. And when I asked him, I said, ‘Do you believe that you guys can handle it today?’ The answer was ‘No,’” said Leeser.

On the ground, advocates have said they worry about a growing humanitarian crisis, especially as temperatures plunge dangerously low, into the 20s, during a cold front ahead of Christmas.

Last week, officials with the city of El Paso said they may bus migrants to nearby large cities like Dallas, Houston, Denver and Phoenix, all large transportation hubs with big airports, to help ferry migrants to other cities. Abbott, meanwhile, has been busing migrants to faraway Democratic strongholds for months.

The DHS is planning to increase resources at the border though they don’t know yet exactly how large the need there will be.

The Texas Air National Guard has three flying units; the 136th flies and maintains eight C-130 aircraft.

WHAT IS TITLE 42

title 42 Apr 20, 2022

What is Title 42?

title 42 May 20, 2022

What Does Title 42 Mean and What Do Texans Need to Know?

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser told a news conference that the city is distributing outdoor toilets and water stations as it offers overnight hotel rooms to migrants. He said their numbers are exceeding capacity at a county reception facility and the region’s network of shelters with nonprofit and faith-based groups.

The Department of Homeland Security is indicating it may release more migrants into the United States when Trump-era asylum restrictions end next week, with local government and border officials warning of immigrants waiting to cross into the U.S. Under current restrictions, migrants have been denied their right to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

In recent days, El Paso has witnessed hundreds of migrants wading across shallows waters of the Rio Grande into the U.S., forming lines along a border wall to approach immigration authorities and request refuge. City officials fear the asylum-rule change could double local migrant crossings, estimated at roughly 2,500 migrants a day over the past week.

Fernando Garcia, director of the Border Network for Human Rights, said migrants currently view Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city across from El Paso, as a relatively secure place to approach the border amid dangers in Mexico of extortion and organized crime.

WHAT IS TITLE 42?

Immigration Apr 1, 2022

What Is Title 42? The Soon-to-Expire Border Policy, Explained

title 42 May 20, 2022

What Does Title 42 Mean and What Do Texans Need to Know?

The City of El Paso announced Wednesday it received a new $6 million commitment to underwrite its migrant response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“This funding and shelter is not the answer, it’s a Band-Aid to really a bigger problem,” said Leeser, a Democrat elected in 2020. “It’s something we’re going to have to work with the (United Nations) and other countries, to work through a situation … that’s again is bigger than El Paso and that now has become bigger than the United States.”

Mario D’Agostino, a deputy city manager leading the emergency response, said the sheer number of migrants is straining not only local staff but also U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“They’re working long hours, day and night, they’re doing processing rather than their primary function of securing the border,” he said.

City officials say that most of the migrants released in recent days by federal immigration authorities have some financial means or sponsors in the U.S. to pay for transportation to communities in the U.S. interior. But he said the city is bracing for an even larger surge in asylum-seeking migrants that may not have resources for further travel.

The city recently disbanded its aid and communications center for migrants, while suspending a busing program to deliver thousands of mostly Venezuelan migrants to Chicago and New York in September and October.

D’Agostino outlined a new strategy that might ferry migrants to large, nearby transportation hubs, such as Dallas, Denver and Phoenix. He said federal immigration authorities are preparing to possibly process and directly release migrants at a bridge that connects Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso.

The city’s response to surges in migration numbers stands in contrast to border-security efforts by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has deployed troops to the border and gotten attention for busing migrants to faraway Democratic strongholds.

Officers assigned to the World Trade Bridge in Laredo made the seizure on Nov. 22. Street value is estimated are more than $1.5 million.

“This is an excellent seizure by our officers working at the CBP cargo facilities. It’s a perfect example of their unfailing vigilance in guarding our nation’s borders and protecting lawful trade and travel,” said  “This is an excellent seizure by our officers working at the CBP cargo facilities. It’s a perfect example of their unfailing vigilance in guarding our nation’s borders and protecting lawful trade and travel,” said Port Director Albert Flores, Laredo Port of Entry Director Albert Flores via news release.

Officers called for a secondary inspection of a tractor-trailer that was supposed to be carrying polypropylene film. Canines and non-intrusive inspections found nearly 119 pounds of cocaine inside.

CBP seized the narcotics and Homeland Security Investigations special agents are investigating the seizure.

A bus full of migrants seeking asylum that departed from Texas arrived in Philadelphia Wednesday morning, including a 10-year-old girl suffering from dehydration.

The bus arrived in Philadelphia at about 6 a.m. ET and the asylum seekers, about 28 in total, were greeted by advocates who gave them welcome kits including hygiene products, blankets, hot coffee, bottles of water and clothing.

The migrants, who NBC 10 in Philadelphia reported were from Colombia, Cuba and the Dominican Republic were taken to a welcoming center shelter in North Philadelphia.

A 10-year-old girl on board was dehydrated and required some care, NBC 10’s Miguel Martinez-Valle reported. She was taken to a hospital for treatment.

“There’s a 10-year-old who’s completely dehydrated,” Democratic Philadelphia City Council member Helen Gym said. “It’s one of the more inhumane aspects that they would put a child who was dehydrated with a fever now, a very high fever (on the bus). It’s a terrible situation.”

A migrant from Nicaragua who got off the bus told Miguel that he got on the bus after someone in Texas told him it was OK that he didn’t have money to travel. The 23-year-old man said he is seeking work.

TEXAS GOVERNOR SAYS MIGRANTS WILL GO TO PHILADELPHIA

Abbott confirmed the trip on Twitter on Tuesday, saying the state would now include the City of Brotherly Love among the growing list of Democratic-led cities considered destinations for migrants seeking asylum at the Texas border.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said on Twitter Tuesday afternoon that they received confirmation that 30 people were on the way and that, “As a proud welcoming city, Philadelphia will greet our newly arrived neighbors with dignity and respect.”

Kenney also tweeted that it was “disgusting that Gov. Abbott’s administration continues to implement their purposefully cruel policy using immigrant families as political pawns” and that the Philadelphia government, agencies and partners were working to welcome, assist and provide support to the migrants and their families.

NBC 10 in Philadelphia said a spokesperson for Kenney said they were told last week that approximately 30 asylum seekers were expected to travel from Del Rio to Philadelphia. They also said Texas officials have not coordinated with Philadelphia officials and they did not have an anticipated time for when the bus would arrive as a result.

“As Texas officials have not coordinated with local officials, this information has not been confirmed, but it has been reported to us from our community partners that roughly half of the 30 individuals are part of family units, and half are solo individuals,” the spokesperson wrote. “Approximately seven children may be on board.”

The spokesperson said it was likely that several of the migrants will disembark during stops in other states during the trip.

“Only three individuals have Pennsylvania reported as their final destination, according to the latest information provided by our local partner organization; others are reported to continue on to nearby locations including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maryland,” the spokesperson wrote.

Abbott said Tuesday that Philadelphia was selected as a destination for the migrants because of Kenney’s “long celebrated” fight for sanctuary city status “making the city an ideal addition to Texas’ list of drop-off locations.”

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Philadelphia now joins Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago as one of the cities that has received at least one of the more than 300 buses carrying 13,000 migrants out of Texas since April.

“Texas’ busing strategy has successfully provided much-needed relief to our border communities overwhelmed by the historic influx of migrants caused by President Biden’s reckless open border policies,” said Abbott, who described the migrants as invaders and said the bussing would continue the southern border was secured.

“Until the Biden Administration does its job and provides Texans and the American people with sustainable border security, Texas will continue doing more than any other state in the nation’s history to defend against an invasion along the border, including adding more sanctuary cities like Philadelphia as drop-off locations for our busing strategy,” Abbott said.

The migrants were dropped off at Philadelphia’s William H. Gray III 30th Street Station on Wednesday morning.

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Video captured Monday by the El Paso Times shows Border Patrol agents approaching the group, which included a man holding a very large Venezuelan flag, that had crossed the shallow river.

Border Patrol spokesperson Landon Hutchens said in a statement that as the group of Venezuelan nationals protested along the river, they tried to enter the U.S. illegally.

“One of the protesters assaulted an agent with a flag pole,” Hutchens said. “A second subject threw a rock causing injury to an agent at which time agents responded by initiating crowd control measures.”

Those measures included launching “less-lethal force” pepper balls, he said. The projectiles release an irritant to the eyes, nose and throat.

Hutchens said the crowd then dispersed and returned to Mexico. Hutchens did not give details on the agents’ injuries.

Before the conflict at the river Monday, a group of migrants had marched in Juarez, across the border from El Paso, demanding an opportunity to cross the border, the newspaper reported.

According to a new Biden administration policy that took effect last month, which came in response to a dramatic increase in migration from Venezuela, Venezuelans who walk or swim across the U.S. border will be immediately returned to Mexico.

The Biden administration has agreed to accept up to 24,000 Venezuelan migrants at U.S. airports while Mexico has agreed to take back Venezuelans who come to the U.S. illegally over land.

Roberto Velasco, Mexico’s director for North American affairs, tweeted Monday that the Mexican government had requested information from its U.S. counterparts about the confrontation.

Jonathan Blazer, director of border strategies at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the footage “highly alarming.”

“People seeking asylum on U.S. soil should be screened for protection, not pushed back, especially through use of force,” Blazer said.

According to statistics from Customs and Border Protection, its officials used “less-lethal” force — such as batons, stun guns, tear gas and pepper spray — 338 times in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

Hutchens said the Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional responsibility will review Monday’s incident.

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas on Tuesday announced that the states had brokered a deal following months of negotiations. While the terms remain confidential, his office called it “a comprehensive resolution of all the claims in the case.”

“Extreme drought and erratic climate events necessitate that states must work together to protect the Rio Grande, which is the lifeblood of our New Mexico farmers and communities,” Balderas said in a statement. “And I’m very disappointed that the U.S. is exerting federal overreach and standing in the way of the states’ historic water agreement.”

Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice and irrigation districts that serve farmers downstream of Elephant Butte reservoir argued that the proposal would not be a workable solution. The river is managed through a system of federal dams and canals under provisions of a water-sharing agreement that also involves Mexico.

The case has been pending before the U.S. Supreme Court for nearly a decade. Texas has argued that groundwater pumping in southern New Mexico has reduced river flows, limiting how much water makes it across the border. New Mexico argues that it has been shorted on its share of the river.

New Mexico and the other states plan in the coming weeks to submit their motion to move the proposed settlement forward, opening the door for federal officials and the irrigation districts to respond.

Another hearing has been scheduled for January.

The battle over the Rio Grande has become a multimillion-dollar case in a region where water supplies are dwindling due to increased demand along with drought and warmer temperatures brought on by climate change.

So far, New Mexico has spent roughly $21 million on lawyers and scientists over the last nine years.

Last fall, the special master overseeing the case presided over the first phase of trial, which included testimony from farmers, hydrologists, irrigation managers and others. More technical testimony was expected to be part of the next phase, which has now been put off.

Earlier this year, some of the river’s stretches in New Mexico marked record low flows, resulting in some farmers voluntarily fallowing fields to help the state meet downstream water-sharing obligations.

In the Elephant Butte Irrigation District, officials recently warned farmers that they can likely expect another late start to the irrigation season in 2023 and that allotments will be low again since the system depends less on summer rains and more on spring runoff from snowmelt in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.

The humanitarian relief center on Randall’s Island is intended to be a temporary waystation for single, adult men — many from Venezuela — who have been arriving several times per week on buses chartered predominantly from Texas.
Spartan and utilitarian, the tents include cots for up to 500 people, laundry facilities, a dining hall and phones for residents to make international calls.

The city’s plan is to bring single men to the facility once they arrive at the main Manhattan bus terminal and to house them there for a period of days while determining next steps, officials said. Families with children are being housed in a hotel.

“We needed a different type of operation that gave us the time and space to welcome people, provide them a warm meal, shower, a place to sleep, to understand their medical needs, to really then work with them to figure out what their next step is going to be,” said Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol.

The white, plastic-walled tents also include a space where migrants can meet with case workers to determine their next steps, as well as a recreational room with televisions, video games and board games. They are heated, since overnight autumn temperatures can fall into the 40s and 30s. In the sleeping area, row upon row of green cots stretch out, each one with a pillow, some sheets and a blanket, and some towels. The city said it will be able to double the sleeping capacity of the tents, if needed.

In recent months, New York City has seen an unexpected increase in migrants seeking asylum in the United States who have been sent to the city from other states including Texas and Arizona. The influx has put a strain on the city’s shelter system, leading officials to look for other places to house people and propose the temporary tent facilities.

New York City’s homeless shelter system is now bursting with more than 63,300 residents. While there are fewer families in the shelters now than there were in the years before the pandemic, the number of single men has soared since the spring, largely because of the influx of migrants. There were more than 20,000 single adults in the shelter system Monday, up 23% from the nightly average in July.

Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency earlier this month, calling the increased demand being put on the city “not sustainable.”

The tents were initially planned for a far-off corner of the Bronx, but were moved after concerns about flooding and criticism from immigrant advocates over the remote location. Iscol said the Randall’s Island location was safe from flooding.

Advocates remain concerned even with the new location, questioning what conditions migrants will be kept in, and whether the support they get will be adequate.

Randall’s Island is located in the waters between the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens. Five bridges connect it to the three boroughs, and the city’s subway system is a bus ride or walk away.

It’s already put to a variety of uses — there are numerous athletic fields, as well as Icahn Stadium, a track and field facility. There’s also a psychiatric hospital and a fire academy for the Fire Department of New York.

Court documents show that James Martinez, Luis Armando Lopez-Alvarado and Desiree Love Rodarte were charged with human smuggling and human smuggling conspiracy after their arrest Sunday at a Texas airport. They are being held without bond.

An arrest affidavit shows U.S. Homeland Security Investigations agents had the Mid-Valley Airport in the lower Rio Grande Valley city of Weslaco under surveillance Sunday when they saw Martinez and Lopez-Alvarado drop off six people who boarded a chartered Beechcraft airplane with Rodarte.

Agents boarded the plane and performed an immigration check that exposed the six as being in the country illegally, and they arrested Martinez, Lopez and Rodarte.

Martinez and Lopez declined to give agents any statement, but Rodarte told them that she had arranged to transport to the U.S. interior people who had crossed the border illegally.

Three of the six migrants were held as material witnesses until their testimony could be recorded. In the affidavit, the Salvadoran nationals said they had been picked up, two from a stash house and one from a hotel, then driven to the airport to be flown deeper into the United States.

Messages to attorneys for the three suspects were not returned immediately. A Homeland Security Investigations spokesperson declined to comment, saying the criminal investigation was ongoing.

Florida’s Ron DeSantis flew about 50 Venezuelans last week to the small, upscale island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. During the weekend, Texas’ Greg Abbott bused more migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris’ Washington home.

U.S. authorities are grappling with unusually large numbers of migrants crossing the border from Mexico amid rapidly changing demographics. The administration said Monday that people from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua accounted for more than one of three migrants stopped at the border in August. Authorities stopped migrants 2.15 million times from October through August, the first time above 2 million during the government’s fiscal year.

Since April, Texas has bused about 8,000 migrants to Washington, 2,200 to New York and 300 to Chicago. Arizona bused more than 1,800 to Washington since May, while the city of El Paso, Texas, bused more than 1,100 to New York since Aug. 23.

Here are some questions and answers:

ARE MIGRANTS LEGALLY IN THE UNITED STATES?

Yes, temporarily. Tens of thousands of migrants who cross the border illegally from Mexico are released in the United States each month with notices to appear in immigration court to pursue asylum or on humanitarian parole with requirements to report regularly to immigration authorities. Migrants may seek asylum if they enter the country illegally under U.S. and international law, and U.S. authorities have broad authority to grant parole based on individual circumstances.

Migrants must keep a current address with authorities, who schedule appointments in a city with the nearest court or immigration office. They must apply separately for permission to work.

Last year, it took an average of nearly four years for asylum cases to be decided in immigration court, according to the Biden administration, leaving migrants in a legal purgatory that shields them from deportation. The backlog in immigration courts has mushroomed to more than 1.9 million cases, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

To avoid massive overcrowding in detention facilities, the administration began releasing many migrants on humanitarian parole. The Border Patrol paroled nearly 250,000 migrants from August through June, including 40,151 in June, the latest figures released. In the previous seven months, it paroled only 11 migrants.

ARE THESE MIGRANTS KIDNAPPED?

Kidnapping is a high legal threshold, but migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard say they were taken there on false pretenses. Migrants sign waivers that the transportation is free and voluntary.

DeSantis used a state program in which migrants deemed “unauthorized aliens” can be moved “from Florida,” though the governor has acknowledged the flights originated in Texas.

They stopped first in Florida, before going to Martha’s Vineyard, but DeSantis has not emphasized that. Instead, he maintains that the two flights were a legitimate use of funds because the migrants otherwise would have aimed to go to Florida, though he offered no evidence of that and did not say how migrants might have been vetted.

Migrants who boarded the flights told The Associated Press that a woman who approached them at a San Antonio shelter promised jobs and three months of housing in Washington, New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

On Monday, Javier Salazar, the sheriff of Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, opened an investigation into the flights, but the elected Democrat didn’t say what laws may have been broken. Other Democrats have urged the U.S. Justice Department to investigate, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, whose district includes San Antonio.

DOESN’T THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION BUS AND FLY MIGRANTS AROUND THE COUNTRY?

Yes, but under different circumstances. Like earlier administrations, it transports migrants between detention facilities, often on their way to being removed from the country.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had more than 4,800 domestic flights in the last year, including 434 in August, according to Witness to the Border, a group that criticizes U.S. enforcement. The top five destinations from March to August were: Alexandria, Louisiana; Laredo, Texas; Phoenix; and Harlingen and El Paso in Texas. ICE also buses many migrants.

The Department of Health and Human Services transports unaccompanied children to “sponsors,” who are often family, or child-only detention facilities.

DID ANYONE ASK FOR THIS?

Republican-led states say they are sending migrants to “sanctuary” cities that welcome immigrants. While the definition of a sanctuary city is slippery, a sudden influx of migrants can test attitudes and limits of generosity.

Chicago’s “Welcoming City Ordinance” prohibits asking people about their immigration status, denying services based on immigration status and disclosing information to federal immigration authorities.

New York limits cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities, partly by prohibiting police officers from participating in joint enforcement or by letting immigration agents work in city jails.

In Martha’s Vineyard, the six towns that make up the island south of Boston haven’t issued any “sanctuary” declarations.

The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for restrictions, keeps an extensive list of “sanctuary” jurisdictions, which, by its definition, limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. They include Boston and seven other Massachusetts cities. None of the towns in Martha’s Vineyard are on the list.

WHO’S PAYING AND HOW MUCH?

Texas has committed billions of dollars to Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star,” an unprecedented move into border security that includes the bus trips, prosecuting border crossers for trespassing and massive presence of state troopers and National Guard.

The Florida Legislature allocated $12 million for its program for the current budget year.

The city of El Paso, which last week contracted a private bus company at a cost of up to $2 million, plans to seek reimbursement from the federal government.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced the arrival of the buses and posted on Twitter, “Texas will continue sending migrants to sanctuary cities like D.C. until Biden & Harris do their jobs to secure the border.”

It’s in response to criticism of Harris saying that the border is “secure.”

“Our supposed Border Czar, VP Harris, has yet to see firsthand the impact of the open border policies she has helped implement,” Tweeted Abbott.

Gov. Abbott’s office said the majority of the migrants on the buses came from Colombia, Cuba, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela.

Civil rights organizations like The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) have condemned Abbott’s move and believe it’s a political stunt before the midterms.

“This is a cruel, un-Christian, un-Texan, un-American way to use human beings as political piñatas which is what the governor is doing, Gov. Abbott is doing,” said LULAC national president, Domingo Garcia. “Using human beings as political piñatas to try and rev up his base in Texas for his election.”

Garcia, who works out of Dallas, was in D.C. for an event when he said he made a detour to the outside of the vice president’s home once he heard the news of the migrants being dropped off.

“None of them asked to be sent to Kamala Harris’ office, none of them asked to go to Washington D.C., we believe that they were tricked by officials there at the border in Eagle Pass, Texas and told they would be provided housing, and transportation and in fact all they got was a one-way bus ticket to Kamala Harris’ home to be used as political pawns, it’s a political stunt and it’s one of the most grotesque political stunts I’ve ever seen,” said Garcia.

He said a church group picked up the migrants had provided resources. Garcia said two people were taken to the hospital, including one man who was diabetic and was going into shock, while a baby had to go the hospital for respiratory issues.

“This is who they’re putting on buses after they had already been lawfully admitted into the United States pending their court hearing, so it’s just terrible political theatre and such an abuse of power and disrespect for the dignity of these human beings,” said Garcia.

Gov. Abbott accuses the Biden-Harris administration of ignoring the crisis at the border, which is part of the reason why he’s bused thousands of migrants to other cities, including Washington D.C., New York City, and Chicago, over the last few months.

Garcia said he believes there’s a better way to take care of the issue without sending people to places without resources.

“That’s why we need to have bipartisan immigration reform that fixes the broken immigration system playing the blame game and using people as political pawns that is not the way you get anything solved. Bringing children and families as refugees, to Kamala Harris’ house doesn’t solve anything, it’s just trying to score cheap political points at the expense of human beings and not solving the problem,” said Garcia.

On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew about 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard , echoing Gov. Abbott in regards to his criticism of the Biden Administration and the border.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials discovered the victims near Eagle Pass, Texas, on Thursday, following days of heavy rains. U.S. officials recovered six bodies, while Mexican teams recovered three, according to a CBP statement. It is one of the deadliest drownings on the U.S.-Mexico border in recent history.

The river, which was a little more than 3 feet (90 centimeters) deep at the start of the week, reached more than 5 feet (1.5 meters) on Thursday, and the water was flowing five times faster than usual, according to the National Weather Service.

The CBP said U.S. crews rescued 37 others from the river and detained 16 more, while Mexican officials took 39 migrants into custody.

CBP did not say what country or countries the migrants were from and did not provide any additional information on rescue and search operations. Local agencies in Texas that were involved have not responded to requests for information.

Among the bodies recovered from the river by Mexican authorities was a man and a pregnant woman, although their nationalities were unknown, said Francisco Contreras, a member of Civil Protection in the Mexican border state of Coahuila. No details were released about the third body found.

The Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass, is fast becoming the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. Agents stopped migrants nearly 50,000 times in the sector in July, with Rio Grande Valley a distant second at about 35,000. Eagle Pass is about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio.

Chief Patrol Agent Jason Owens of the Del Rio sector said that despite dangerous currents from recent rainfall, Border Patrol agents in the sector continue to encounter groups as large as 100 or 200 people trying to cross the Rio Grande each day.

“In an effort to prevent further loss of life, we are asking everyone to please avoid crossing illegally,” Owens said in a statement.

Among the reasons the area has become popular for migrants in recent years is that it is not as strongly controlled by cartels and is perceived to be somewhat safer, said Stephanie Leutert, director of Central America and Mexico Policy Initiative at the University of Texas’ Center for International Security and Law.

“It might be a different price. It might be seen as safer. It might keep you out of cities that are notoriously dangerous,” Leutert said. “Those cities (in the Del Rio sector) definitely have had a reputation as being safer than say, Nueva Laredo.”

The area draws migrants from dozens of countries, many of them families with young children. About six of 10 stops in the Del Rio sector in July were migrants from Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua. The region also has been a popular crossing point for migrants from Haiti, thousands of whom have been stuck in border towns since 2016, when the Obama administration abruptly halted a policy that initially allowed them in on humanitarian grounds.

The sector, which extends 245 miles (395 kilometers) along the Río Grande, has been especially dangerous because river currents can be deceptively fast and change quickly. Crossing the river can be challenging even for strong swimmers.

“There are places when the water levels are down where you could wade across, but when the river is up it’s extremely dangerous, especially if you’re carrying kids or trying to help someone who is not a strong swimmer,” Leutert said.

In a news release last month, CBP said it had discovered bodies of more than 200 dead migrants in the sector from October through July.

This year is on track to break last year’s record for the most deaths on the U.S.-Mexico border since 2014, when the U.N. International Organization for Migration began keeping record. The organization has tallied more than 4,000 deaths on the border since 2014, based on news reports and other sources, including 728 last year and 412 during the first seven months of this year, often from dehydration or drowning. June was the fourth-deadliest month on record, with 138 fatalities.

The Border Patrol has not released official tallies since 2020.

In June, 53 migrants were found dead or dying in a tractor-trailer on a back road in San Antonio in the deadliest documented tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico.

“The whole journey speaks to the desperation of people,” Leutert said. “They know that crossing the river is dangerous. They know that hiking through ranchland is dangerous. They know that crossing Mexico as a foreigner is dangerous. But they’re willing to do this because what they’re leaving behind is, to them, a worse possibility than facing risk and trying for a better opportunity in the U.S.”

Some of the busiest crossings on the border — including Eagle Pass and Yuma, Arizona — were relatively quiet two years ago and now largely draw migrants from outside Mexico and Central America’s ‘Northern Triangle’ countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Mexico has agreed to take migrants from the ‘Northern Triangle’ countries, as well as its own nationals, if they are expelled from the United States under Title 42, the pandemic rule in effect since March 2020 that denies rights to seek asylum on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

People from other countries are likely to be released into the United States on humanitarian parole or with notices to appear in immigration court because the U.S. has difficulty flying them home due to costs, strained diplomatic relations or other considerations. In the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass, only one of every four stops in July were processed under the pandemic rule, compared to about half across the rest of the border, according to government figures.

Venezuelans were by far the most common nationality encountered by Border Patrol agents in the Del Rio sector in July, accounting for 14,120 of 49,563 stops, or nearly three in 10. They were followed by Cubans, who were stopped 10,275 times, and then by Mexicans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans and Colombians, in that order.

As more people crossed into South Texas in the 2010s, Brooks County became a death trap for many migrants who tried walking around a Border Patrol highway checkpoint in the town of Falfurrias, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of the border. Smugglers dropped them off before the checkpoint and made arrangements to pick them up on the other side, but some perished on the way from dehydration.

The Baboquivari Mountains in Arizona and ranches in Texas’ Brooks County still draw Border Patrol agents and grief-stricken families hoping to rescue migrants or, if not, find corpses, but the deceptively strong currents around the Texas towns of Eagle Pass and Del Rio have become increasingly dangerous as the area has become one of the most popular spots to enter the United States illegally.

Not all victims are migrants. In April this year, the body of a Texas guardsman was recovered from the Rio Grande. He had jumped in to try to help a migrant who was struggling in the water.

Wallace reported from Dallas and Murphy reported from Oklahoma City. Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed.

The girl was attempting to cross the river with her mother Monday, when the current swept her away. The institute said two were from Central America, but did not specify which country.

The mother told rescuers she was holding her child, but the current swept her daughter out of her arms.

The child’s body was found downstream near Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Four other migrants from South America were also found trapped in the river nearby and taken to safety.

The body of 13-year-old Pascual Melvin Guachiac Sipac arrived around midday in Guatemala’s capital. Twenty-one Guatemalans were among the migrants who died after being abandoned in a tractor-trailer June 27 in sweltering heat.

The boy’s family was on hand to receive the casket at the capital’s airport.

Guachiac Sipac was an Indigenous Quiche who spoke little Spanish, but he set out nonetheless with his cousin for the United States, both hoping to work and help their families. His cousin, Wilmer Tulul, died too and his body was expected to return to Guatemala Saturday.

They were from Tzucubal, a community of about 1,500 people in the mountains nearly 100 miles northwest of the capital, where most live by subsistence farming.

A fourth flight carrying the last of the incident’s Mexican victims landed Friday. Mexico flew home 25 of its 26 victims this week in accordance with the families’ wishes.

Six Hondurans made up the remainder of the victims.

The federal government is responsible for enforcement of immigration laws, but for more than a year Texas has patrolled the border with an increasingly heavier hand.

Abbott stopped short of authorizing Texas troopers and National Guard members — who he has already deployed to the border by the thousands — to take migrants across the ports of entry and into Mexico. That disappointed former Trump administration officials who for months have pressured Abbott to declare an “invasion” and order state forces to forcibly take migrants out of the country.

But the action is still a significant and untested expansion of the normal powers of the National Guard and state police, who until now have turned migrants over to Border Patrol agents, and in some cases, made arrests on state trespassing charges. It raises questions over the training they have to detain and transport migrants and is likely to invite legal challenges.

Crossings are at or near the highest in about two decades. On the Texas border, U.S. authorities stopped migrants from crossing illegally 523,000 times between January and May, up from 417,000 over the same span a year ago.

In his release, Abbott said about 5,000 migrants were apprehended over the Fourth of July weekend.

Abbott has blamed the Biden administration and spent more than $3 billion in state funds on a massive border security apparatus, dubbed Operation Lone Star. Abbott also announced Thursday that he will be committing an additional $30 million to the border initiative, which is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The state operation has not stemmed the flow of migrants.

“As the challenges on the border continue to increase, Texas will continue to take action to address those challenges caused by the Biden Administration,” Abbott said.

Officials with U.S. Custom and Border Protection did not immediately return requests for comment.

The announcement comes two days after former Trump administration officials and sheriffs in several South Texas called on Abbott to declare that the state is being invaded and use extraordinary powers normally reserved for war. Their plan involves a novel interpretation of the U.S. Constitution to have the National Guard or state police forcibly send migrants to Mexico, without regard to immigration laws and law enforcement procedures.

The idea has existed on the right fringes of the GOP for years but has gained traction among conservatives since Biden took office.

The Center for Renewing America, a conservative policy think tank led by former Trump administration officials, has been driving the effort and criticized Abbott’s order since it does not call for expelling migrants.

“That is critical. Otherwise, this is still catch and release,” the group said in a statement.

U.S. border authorities are stopping migrants more often on the southern border than at any time in at least two decades. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up by one-third from a year ago.

Comparisons to pre-pandemic levels are complicated because migrants expelled under a public health authority known as Title 42 face no legal consequences, encouraging repeat attempts. Authorities say 25% of encounters in May were with people who had been stopped at least once in the previous year.

IMMIGRATION IN TEXAS

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A lawyer for the state police agency acknowledged the federal probe of Gov. Greg Abbott’s initiative to curb people crossing from Mexico in a May email, records obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune show. The state prison system also cited a “formal investigation” in a letter seeking to withhold public records related to Operation Lone Star.

The investigation comes to light as a human smuggling attempt that left 53 people dead in a sweltering tractor-trailer highlights the limits of state and federal border controls. Crossings along the entire southern border are at or near their highest point in about two decades.

Last year, Abbott, a Republican seeking reelection, rolled out a massive law enforcement apparatus on the border, alleging inaction by President Joe Biden’s administration. The surge in officers has driven arrests — including for trespassing, low-level amounts of marijuana and other minor crimes that appear to have little to do with border security. Some of those detained have spent weeks in state jails.

The emails from Texas Department of Public Safety officials indicate federal authorities are looking at whether the operation may have broken a law against discrimination based on race, color or national origin by organizations receiving federal funds.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice’s civil rights division declined to comment. A Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman did not respond to a request for comment and a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not immediately provide any comment.

Since April, Abbott has also offered migrants bus rides to Washington, D.C., saying he was taking the immigration issue to Congress’s doorstep. So far, about 3,000 migrants have taken the trip at a cost of more than $5 million.

An NBC 5 Investigates report in June detailed how state records showed the cost of Abbott’s plan to bus undocumented immigrants from the border to Washington D.C. has cost more than $1,400 per rider so far.

The efforts have not stopped a recent increase in crossings at the southern border. Authorities stopped migrants from crossing illegally 523,000 times between January and May, up from 417,000 over the same span a year ago.

The U.S. Supreme Court is giving the Biden administration the ability to end the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy that has forced thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico for their hearings.

Immigration advocates are claiming victory but also demanding action.

“We need the Biden administration to act swiftly and for not a single person to be added into the Remain in Mexico program following this decision,” said Adrianna Quiroga, policy and government affairs strategist for RAICE, a legal services provider and Texas immigrant advocacy nonprofit.

RAICES says they’re prepared to help any of the estimated 70,000 migrants who have been waiting to claim asylum in the U.S.

The migrants, mostly Central American and Haitians, have been living in filthy makeshift camps along the U.S. Mexico border awaiting the opportunity to come into the U.S. and wait for their court proceedings.

The court’s decision allows the Biden administration to move forward with ending the policy officially known as Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP.

President Donald Trump launched the program in 2019 to deter a wave of asylum seekers at the border.

President Joe Biden vowed to end the program during his presidential campaign, but once he was in office and tried to end the program, two states including Texas filed a lawsuit.

The case, Biden vs. Texas, ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court which handed Mr. Biden the victory with a 5-4 vote.

“It is important to understand that the decision that the Supreme Court made today does not open the door, the floodgates, for the border,” said immigration attorney Haim Vasquez.

Vasquez says there are countless policies still in place that immigration authorities use to determine whether undocumented migrants are to be allowed into the country or turned away immediately, including Title 42.

Title 42 is the CDC public health policy that has allowed for the immediate expulsion of migrants back to their home countries or to Mexico in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The controversial policy remains in place as the issue winds its way through the court system.

“Remain in Mexico and Title 42, we see them targeting mainly Black and brown migrants at the border,” said Quiroga. “We see them hindering folks’ ability to properly seek asylum in this country. So, they do go hand in hand and they’re both incredibly inhumane policies.”

Asked if she believes the Biden administration will move quickly to end MPP before the midterm elections, Quiroga did not appear sure.

“We were going to fight until it does, and we’re prepared to continue to advocate and push the Biden administration on the promises that he’s made to voters,” she said.

As families of the 67 people packed into a tractor-trailer and abandoned on Monday in Texas began to confirm their worst fears and talk of their relatives, a common narrative of pursuing a better life took shape from Honduras to Mexico.

Fifty-three of those migrants left in the sweltering heat on the outskirts of San Antonio had died as of Wednesday, while others remained hospitalized. The tedious process of identification continues, but families are confirming their losses.

The dead included 27 people from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador, said Francisco Garduno, chief of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute.

Each put their lives in the hands of smugglers. News of the trailer full of bodies struck horror in cities and villages accustomed to watching their young people leave, trying to flee poverty or violence in Central America and Mexico.

COUPLE FROM HONDURAS

In Las Vegas, Honduras, a town of 10,000 people about 50 miles south of San Pedro Sula, Alejandro Miguel Andino Caballero, 23, and Margie Tamara Paz Grajeda, 24, had believed his degree track in marketing and hers in economics would open doors to economic stability.

Already together for nearly a decade, the young couple spent recent years applying for jobs with companies. But time and again they were denied.

The pandemic hit, hurricanes devastated the northern part of the country and they grew disillusioned.

So when a relative of Andino Caballero’s living in the United States offered to help him and his younger brother, 18-year-old Fernando Jose Redondo Caballero, finance the trip north, they were ready.

“You think that when people have a higher level of education, they have to get more employment opportunities,” said Karen Caballero, the brothers’ mother. “Because that’s why they work, study.”

Caballero did not feel like she could hold them back anymore, including 24-year-old Paz Grajeda, who lived with Alejandro in his mother’s home and who Caballero referred to as her daughter-in-law though they had not married.

“We all planned it as a family so they could have a different life, so they could achieve goals, dreams,” Caballero said.

When they left Las Vegas on June 4, Caballero accompanied them to Guatemala. From there, the young trio were smuggled across Guatemala and then Mexico in the back of semi-trailers.

“I thought things were going to go well,” she said. “Who was a little afraid was Alejandro Miguel. He said, ‘Mom, if something happens to us.’ And I told him, ‘Nothing is going to happen. You are not the first nor will you be the last human being to travel to the United States.”‘

Caballero last spoke to them Saturday morning. They told her they had crossed the Rio Grande at Roma, Texas, were headed to Laredo and on Monday expected to head north to Houston.

She had just gotten home Monday evening when someone told her to turn on the television. “I couldn’t process it,” she said of seeing the report about the trailer in San Antonio. “Then I remembered how my sons had traveled, that they had been in trucks since Guatemala and the whole stretch in Mexico.”

Caballero was able to confirm their deaths Tuesday after sending their details and photos to San Antonio.

Alejandro Miguel was creative, jovial, known for hugging everyone and being a good dancer. Fernando Jose was enthusiastic and noble, willing to help anyone in need. He imitated his older brother in everything from his haircut to his clothes. They were soccer fanatics, filling their mother’s home with shouts.

The deaths of her sons and Paz Grajeda, who was like a daughter, are devastating. “My children leave a void in my heart,” she said. “We’re going to miss them a lot.”

COUSINS FROM GUATEMALA

Nearly 400 miles away, the prospects for Wilmer Tulul and Pascual Melvin Guachiac, 13-year-old cousins from Tzucubal, Guatemala, had been considerably more narrow.

Tzucubal is an Indigenous Quiche community of about 1,500 people in the mountains nearly 100 miles northwest of the capital, where most live by subsistence farming.

“Mom, we’re heading out,” was the last message Wilmer sent to his mother Magdalena Tepaz in their native Quiche on Monday. They had left home June 14.

Hours after hearing that audio message, a neighbor told the family there had been an accident in San Antonio and they feared the worst, Tepaz said through a translator.

The boys had grown up friends and did everything together: playing, going out, even planning to go to the United States despite not speaking Spanish well, said Melvin’s mother, Maria Sipac Coj.

A single mother of two, she said Melvin “wanted to study in the United States, then work and after build my house.” She received a voice message from her son Monday saying they were leaving. She has erased it because she couldn’t stand to listen to it anymore.

Relatives who arranged and paid for the smuggler awaited the boys in Houston. Those relatives told her of their deaths, and the Guatemalan government confirmed them to her Wednesday.

Wilmer’s father, Manuel de Jesus Tulul, could not stop crying Wednesday. He said he had no idea how the boys would get to Houston, but never imagined they would be put in a trailer. His son had left school after elementary and joined his father clearing farmland for planting.

Tulul said Wilmer did not see a future for himself in a town where modest homes were built with remittances sent from the United States. He wanted to help support his three siblings and have his own house and land some day.

The smuggler charged $6,000, almost half of which they had paid. Now Tulul was only thinking about getting his son’s body back and hoping the government would cover the cost.

COUSINS FROM MEXICO

In Mexico, cousins Javier Flores Lopez and Jose Luis Vasquez Guzman left the tiny community of Cerro Verde in the southern state of Oaxaca also hoping to help their families. They were headed to Ohio, where construction jobs and other work awaited.

Flores Lopez is now missing, his family said, while Vasquez Guzman is hospitalized in San Antonio.

Cerro Verde is a community of about 60 people that has largely been abandoned by the young. Those who remain work earning meager livings weaving sun hats, mats, brooms and other items from palm leaves. Many live on as little as 30 pesos a day (less than $2).

It was not the first trip to the U.S.-Mexico border for Flores Lopez, now in his mid-30s, who left Cerro Verde years ago and went to Ohio, where his father and a brother live.

He was back home to see his wife and three small children briefly, said a cousin, Francisco Lopez Hernandez. Vasquez Guzman, 32, decided to go with his cousin for his first trip across the border and hoped to reach his oldest brother who is in Ohio as well.

While everyone knew the risks, countless people from Cerro Verde had made it safely across the U.S.-Mexico border with the help of smugglers, so it came as a shock, Lopez Hernandez said. The family believes Flores Lopez was, too, but they are still awaiting confirmation.

Vasquez Guzman’s mother had intended on getting a visa to visit her hospitalized son, but on Wednesday he was moved out of intensive care and she was able to speak with him by phone. She decided to stay in Mexico and await his recovery, said Aida Ruiz, director of the Oaxaca Institute for Migrant Attention.

Lopez Hernandez said most people rely on those who have made it to the U.S. to send them money for the journey, which usually costs around $9,000.

“There are a lot of risks but for those who are lucky, the fortune is there, to be able to work, earn a living” he said.

Sherman reported from Mexico City and Perez D. from Tzucubal, Guatemala. AP writers Fabiola Sanchez in Mexico City and Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.

Federal prosecutors identified the driver as Homero Zamorano Jr., 45, who was charged with smuggling resulting in death. Zamorano lives in the suburban Houston city of Pasadena and is originally from the Texas border city of Brownsville, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio.

Zamorano was discovered by police hiding in some nearby bushes, prosecutors said. He tried to slip away by pretending to be one of the survivors, a Mexican immigration official said Wednesday.

Zamorano faces the most serious charges along with Christian Martinez, 28, who is accused of conspiracy and allegedly communicating with Zamorano about transporting the migrants.

Both men face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted.

Agents searched Zamorano’s cellphone and found he had been in contact with Martinez, prosecutors said.

Zamorano was scheduled to have his first court appearance Thursday. It was not immediately known if either suspect had an attorney.

Two other men who are not U.S. citizens were also arrested on charges of illegal weapons possession. Prosecutors say investigators found the men at a San Antonio address where the truck was registered.

The truck had been packed with 67 people, and the dead included 27 from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador, said Francisco Garduno, chief of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute.

Meanwhile, a makeshift memorial on the isolated road where the migrants were found is growing with flowers, crosses and bottles of water.

“Lord help us,” San Antonio resident Elizabeth Hernandez said outside the memorial. “We all just need to stick together and pray and do what’s right.”

About a dozen survivors remain hospitalized.

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It’s a price tag that is higher than the cost of a first class plane ticket from some Texas border towns to the nation’s capital. 

The documents, obtained through an open records request to the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM), show busing costs exceeded $1.6 million in April and May, and the total bill may be higher. The records suggest the state has not received invoices for all of the trip expenses yet.

Passenger logs TDEM provided show 1,154 passengers were transported in the early months of the program. That means the approximate per-passenger cost has been at least $1,442.

COMPARING COSTS

In an online search this week, NBC 5 Investigates found plane tickets from border towns McAllen and Del Rio, Texas, to Washington D.C. for about $200-$300. First class tickets were in the $800-900 range, still less than the cost of a seat on the Republican governor’s border buses. 

Our search showed that even a coach plane ticket and a night at a five-star hotel near the White House could cost about half of the price of the state-funded bus trips.

‘BRINGING THE BORDER TO BIDEN’

Abbott announced the busing program in April, describing it as an effort to take, what he calls President Joe Biden’s “mess” at the border, and drop it on Washington’s doorstep.

“We are sending them (undocumented immigrants) to the United States Capitol where the Biden Administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border,” Abbott said during a news conference on April 6.

FUNDRAISING EFFORTS LAG BEHIND SPENDING

But the records provided by TDEM, which manages the busing program, suggest that instead of saddling Washington with border burdens, the buses may saddle Texas taxpayers with big expenses for transportation that could be provided at a much lower cost.

Abbott has pledged to raise private funds to help offset the cost of the trips, but his office’s website shows only about $112,000 raised, while the TDEM records show expenses exceeding $1.6 million so far.

Meanwhile, some aid organizations in Washington D.C. argue the buses are not straining the resources of the federal government, as Abbott hoped. Instead, they say the burden has fallen on local D.C. charities that have stepped forward to assist migrants who are left at the curb when the governor’s border buses pull into the city.

“He could do it in a much better way. But again, we’ve always felt that this is a political stunt by him trying to make a political point,” said Abel Nunez, Executive Director of Central American Resource Center in Washington, a group that meets many of the Texas buses when they arrive in D.C.

‘THEY ARE MOVING ON’

Nunez said more than 90% of the passengers his group encounters do not intend to stay in the Washington D.C. area.

“They are moving on to other parts of the country,” Nunez said.

Another aid group, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, purchases plane and bus tickets to help many of the Texas bus riders travel on to their final destinations.

“We had one (passenger) who was going to Houston, Texas. That was his final destination. So, he was bused up here, and then we put him on a plane to Houston,” said Sister Sharlet Wagner, with Catholic Charities.

“It would be wonderful if they’d buy just an economy (plane) ticket and send them to where they want to go instead of putting them on a bus to Washington, D.C..,” Wagner added.

ABBOTT’S OFFICE RESPONDS

In a statement to NBC 5 Investigates, an Abbott spokesperson said the governor had “received an outpouring of support” for the program, touting the private funds raised so far. The spokesperson, Renae Eze, said the buses are having their intended effect of putting pressure on the feds.

“The Biden Administration has responded by slowing their dumping efforts-unintentionally providing relief to these overwhelmed border communities…,” Eze said.

Eze did not respond directly to questions from NBC 5 investigates about whether the program could be managed in a more cost-effective way.

Records provided by TDEM show the cost of the bus trips has ballooned largely because the state hires security guards to ride each bus. Security-related expenses alone topped $1 million in the early weeks of the program, according to the TDEM records. The total costs are also driven higher by the fact that the buses typically travel from San Antonio to the border, then to Washington D.C., and then finally back to Texas, traveling empty on the return trip. The state gets billed for all of the mileage along the way.

Some passengers who ride the buses said they are grateful Texas is spending money to help them move cross-country.

“A very good idea, a very good idea,” said one recent passenger who told NBC 5 she had fled her home country of Colombia and was thankful that Texas gave her a lift to Washington, putting her one step closer to her final destination…in New Jersey.

IMMIGRATION IN AMERICA

Greg Abbott Apr 13, 2022

Second Group of Migrants Arrive in D.C. on Charter Buses Provided by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott

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Title 42 is a public health policy that was enacted by former President Donald Trump’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, allowing U.S. officials to quickly expel migrants entering the United States illegally, including those seeking asylum, on the basis of stemming the spread of COVID-19.

TITLE 42

title 42 May 13, 2022

What to Know About the Title 42 Border Policy

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The CDC has said the policy is no longer needed to protect public health and will be lifted on Monday, but there has been pushback from Texas border cities and 23 other states. Their challenge was heard in court last week by U.S. District Judge Robert R. Summerhays of the Western District of Louisiana, as attorneys argued the CDC did not follow protocol in its move to lift Title 42.

Critics say lifting Title 42 will lead to a migrant surge that the Department of Homeland Security is not ready for, while advocates say the order is not an immigration policy but a health one that is no longer needed.

NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth sent a team to get a first-hand look at what is happening on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border.

MIGRANTS SHELTERING IN MEXICO

There are approximately 5,000 migrants living in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, including 700 people living in a shelter a few blocks from the border, according to local officials.

More people arrive every day, according to those who run the shelter.

Most of the migrants are from Haiti, including some who have been waiting to request asylum in the U.S. for over a year.

Several migrants tell NBC 5 they fled extreme poverty, a lack of jobs and political unrest in Haiti and hope to reunite with family in states like Florida, New York and Massachusetts.

Title 42 is keeping them from seeking asylum in the U.S., for now.

WHAT ARE THE TITLE 42 PREPARATIONS IN TEXAS?

Across the Rio Grande, Texas law enforcement and the National Guard have lined the banks of the river as a show of force.

“Letting them know we don’t want them coming in illegally and if they’re seeking asylum or help to do it legally,” said Sgt. Erick Estrada, Texas DPS Laredo District spokesman.

“Operation Mirror” is underway as part of the larger “Operation Lone Star” — first launched by Gov. Greg Abbott in March 2021 — that aims to cut down on migrants attempting to cross illegally into the country.

After more than a year, and having spent more than $3 billion on the effort, it’s unclear how effective the move has actually been in stemming incoming migrants. While Abbott, who is up for reelection this year and recently staved off a primary challenge, has pointed to thousands of arrests — typically on trespassing charges — and drug seizures, common figures used to measure the flow of illegal migrants continue to rise.

April saw a 22-year high in the number of encounters at the southern border, according to federal data: more than 234,000 undocumented migrants.

But the operation continues, as members of the military recently transported shipments of razor wire to the border in anticipation of a Title 42 decision, according to Estrada.

The hope is to deter migrants from rushing the river toward Texas, officials say.

“Even though it looks calm, on the bottom it’s way different,” Estrada said. “We’ve had some drownings before.”

TEXAS MAYOR’S PERSPECTIVE ON TITLE 42

Pete Saenz, mayor of Laredo, votes Democrat but considers himself an independent. He said now is not the time to let Title 42 lapse.

“No, Title 42 should not be lifted,” he said. “We don’t have another protective layer here and we are vulnerable.”

Saenz said he questions whether the federal government is really prepared to end the policy and face a potential flood of migrants along the border.

He suggests an executive order with changes to where migrants can and should seek asylum would help.

“There’s got to be another way and I’m proposing maybe it’s done remotely from their countries of origin or next to it, a safe zone.”

Saenz said about 73,000 undocumented migrants have been caught in Laredo since October, though most people are not asylum seekers but rather those wanting to evade the Border Patrol.

He wants to avoid a repeat of the situation that unfolded farther north in Del Rio last fall where thousands of Haitian migrants crossed the Rio Grande and huddled under an international bridge for weeks before being removed.

That surge, Saenz said pulled resources from other border communities to Del Rio, leaving them vulnerable to drug traffickers.

His message to the governor and president: “Secure the border. Period.”

HOW DRUG CARTELS INFLUENCE MIGRANT TRAVEL

Laredo registered 12,540 encounters at the border, fewer than cities like McAllen and Del Rio. The reason for this, authorities say, is that migrants typically avoid Nuevo Laredo out of fear of cartels that dominate the region.

The cartels, Estrada adds, operate differently in Nuevo Laredo than organized criminal groups in other border cities.

“Here is not: ‘OK, I’m going to decide to cross.’ You actually have to use their services,” he said. “If you were to cross illegally without permission, they actually also have people on this side that can cause trouble for them.”

DHS estimates there are 170,000 migrants in Mexican camps waiting to seek asylum in the U.S.

Authorities anticipate crossings at the border to increase to about 18,000 a day.

A federal judge may order that pandemic-related asylum limits continue, but Mayorkas offered public reassurances of readiness after a whirlwind tour of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. Homeland Security has said it will prepare for as many as 18,000 daily crossings, compared with a daily average of about 7,800 in April, though Mayorkas emphasized that those are not projections.

Mayorkas visited a remodeled processing center in McAllen, the region’s largest city, where migrants sat on metal benches and on sleeping mats spread on the floor, as aluminum thermal blankets made rustling noises. Televisions pointed into cells.

The center reopened about six weeks ago for about 1,200 migrants. Chain-link fences have been replaced with cinder block walls. Cells have an open roof that Border Patrol officials said provides better ventilation.

The center is divided into two sections: one for women in 17 cells of varying sizes and another for men in four wings, with about 24 rooms. There are 44 shower stalls.

Processing for immigration court appearances can take about two hours a person with an average stay of 43 hours at the facility. Authorities distribute monitoring devices for 250 to 350 migrants released daily.

Up to 600 have been released in a day to Catholic Charities of Rio Grande Valley, officials said.

The Biden administration has sent more personnel and equipment and erected temporary holding facilities to process migrants to prepare for the end of the pandemic-era rule on Monday. Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law, forbids migrants from seeking asylum under U.S. law and international treaty on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The agency also plans to increase prosecutions for illegal border crossings, crack down on smugglers and speed up evaluation of asylum claims, Mayorkas said at a news conference in McAllen.

“We’re a nation of immigrants and we are also a nation of laws,” he said. “We enforce the law and will continue to do so.”

Customs and Border Protection officials stopped migrants 234,088 times on the Mexican border in April, one of the highest in decades and a 5.8% increase from 221,303 in March, according to figures released this week.

But the April tally included 20,118 Ukrainians, nearly all of them entering the country at San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing from Tijuana, Mexico, on humanitarian parole. That number has plummeted since April 25, when the Biden administration stopped accepting Ukrainians at land crossings with Mexico and instead directed them to fly directly to the United States.

Many migrants are repeat crossers because there are no legal consequences of being expelled under Title 42 authority. In April, about 28% were encountered at least once in the previous year.

U.S. authorities applied Title 42 in about four out of every 10 encounters. The rest were subject to immigration laws, which include a right to seek asylum.

The administration said in a court filing Monday that about 91,000 migrants were paroled into the U.S., including people permitted to make asylum claims.

Cubans continued crossing in large numbers, aided by eased travel restrictions to Nicaragua that allow them to fly from the Caribbean island nation to Central America and travel by land to the U.S. border. They were stopped 35,079 times in April, up 8.3% from 32,402 times in March and more than 10 times April 2020.

Title 42 is part of the Public Health Service Act of 1944, which authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to take measures to prevent the entry and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the United States and between states. It was imposed in March 2020 by then-president Donald Trump at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In April 2022, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it would be terminating the Title 42 order, because it was “no longer necessary.” COVID-19 cases had been decreasing and tools such as vaccines and therapeutics are widely available, the CDC noted.

At a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays of Louisiana said he would leave the policy in place for now while he weighs a legal challenge filed by more than 20 states seeking to bar the administration from rescinding the Title 42 policy.

Summerhays said he would issue a ruling before May 23, which is the date set for lifting the asylum restrictions. 

Eric Cedillo, an attorney specializing in civil litigation and immigration in Dallas, said the Biden administration has allowed certain exceptions such as unaccompanied minors.

“I think that’s the misconception. Title 42 is going open the border somehow. It doesn’t do that at all,” Cedillo said. “Not everybody who makes an asylum claim is a good asylum claim or claimant but many that we have sent back to their home country, unfortunately, are being sent back to their deaths. That’s the reality of it. One that, I don’t think many people realize.”

Critics of the administration’s plan to rescind Title 42 fear it will cause a surge of migrants at the southern border. At the hearing Friday, an argument was also made regarding the health of Americans.

Domingo Garcia, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), said his organization is watching the developments closely.

“We have volunteers right now all across the border, helping refugees. We’re talking about children, families, who are in 107-degree weather,” Garcia said.  “A lot of them are Haitians, by the way. These are not even Mexican. A lot of them are coming from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, fleeing communist dictatorships and corrupt governments.”

So far, Summehays’ rulings have strongly favored those challenging the administration.

Abbott is raising the idea of Texas mounting a renewed challenge over school funding for children living in the U.S. without legal authorization. It comes as the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appears ready to overturn the decades-old ruling, Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to an abortion nearly 50 years ago.

The comments by Abbott, who is running for a third term in November and has elevated his national profile over the past year through hardline immigration measures, drew swift criticism from immigration rights groups and the White House.

Here’s what to know:

WHAT WOULD TEXAS CHALLENGE?

The requirement that public schools teach all children was affirmed by a 1982 ruling in a case known as Plyler v. Doe. The 5-4 decision struck down a Texas law that sought to deny enrollment to any student not “legally admitted” into the country.

The ruling held that the Texas law violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. It is considered by legal experts to be a landmark case over public education.

Advocates for strict immigration limits have previously sought ways to weaken the decision. One of the more prominent tests came when California voters in 1994 approved Proposition 187, which prohibited immigrants in the country without legal authorization from receiving public health care, education or other social services. The law was overturned.

“What the court recognized in Plyler is that you’re creating a shadow population,” said Geoffrey Hoffman, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center. “In other words, these children, there’ll be repercussions throughout their lives if they don’t get an education.”

WHAT DID ABBOTT SAY?

Texas Republicans have moved increasingly to the right during Abbott’s seven years in office, particularly over immigration and border security, which Abbott has made the cornerstone of his administration.

One law Abbott signed in 2017 lets police ask during routine stops whether someone is in the U.S. legally. More recently, Abbott has spent billions of dollars on a sweeping border security mission called Operation Lone Star, which has resulted in state troopers arresting migrants on trespassing charges and thousands of National Guard members being stationed on the border.

On Wednesday, a conservative talk radio host asked Abbott what he could do about the costs of educating children living in the U.S. without legal authorization, describing it as a burden on local districts. It is unclear how many such students there are or the costs, as Texas does not track citizenship in classrooms.

Abbott pointed to the Plyer decision in his answer.

“I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again,” Abbott said. “Because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different than when Plyler v. Doe was issued many decades ago.”

Asked again about it Thursday, Abbott said the crux of the argument would be that the federal government should foot the bill amid the high numbers of migrant crossings and not the state.

“The state of Texas should not be bearing the burden of the cost of immigration that’s resulting from the Biden Administration’s refusal to enforce the immigration laws,” Abbott said.

Hoffman said Texas made those same economic arguments in the Plyler case and was rejected by the court.

Abbott added when the Plyer decision was made most of the immigrants were from Mexico and most of the immigrants spoke Spanish. Abbott said now there are immigrants arriving speaking dozens of languages and that it’s difficult and expensive for schools and school districts to have staff who can communicate with those children.

“Who has that level of expertise? Where can we find the teachers who know all these multitude of different languages to where we would be able to educate kids and think how much would that cost? So, actually, the cost for the education for the people who are here illegally would be higher than what the average cost would be,” Abbott said.

WHAT’S BEEN THE RESPONSE?

Immigration rights advocates, Democrats and the White House bristled at Abbott’s remarks.

One of the groups behind the Plyler case, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said Abbott was trying to inflict harm the court sought to avoid decades ago. Democrat Beto O’Rourke, the former presidential candidate who is running against Abbott in November, accused the governor of being “against providing public education to all the children of the state of Texas.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

Abbott gave no timeline of when or how Texas might bring a new challenge. Any new law drafted by Republicans would have to wait until 2023 when the state Legislature returns unless the governor calls a special session to take up the issue.

Mexican Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier said a planned rail and ports expansion — known as the T-MEC Corridor — to connect the Pacific port of Mazatlán to the Canadian city of Winnipeg would not use Texas, but instead the rail line would be routed along the far edge of West Texas up through Santa Teresa, N.M., about 20 miles west of downtown El Paso.

“We’re now not going to use Texas,” Clouthier said at a conference April 28 in Mexico City. “We can’t leave all the eggs in one basket and be hostages to someone who wants to use trade as a political tool.”

Clouthier was referring to what Mexican and U.S. officials and business leaders on both sides of the border have described as chaos generated by Abbott’s April 6 order requiring that all commercial trucks coming from Mexico to Texas go through “enhanced” safety inspections. Abbott said the move was necessary to crack down on human and drug smugglers.

In a previous report by NBC 5, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said no evidence of smuggling was uncovered in the searches, as they expected. Beto O’Rourke, who is challenging Abbott for governor in November, said DPS troopers weren’t allowed to search the cargo areas and could only perform safety inspections such as evaluations of the vehicle’s tires and brakes.

Click here to read more from our partners at the Dallas Morning News.

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“The spread of disinformation can affect border security, Americans’ safety during disasters, and public trust in our democratic institutions,” the department said in a statement Wednesday. It declined The Associated Press’ request for an interview.

A newly formed Disinformation Governance Board announced Wednesday will immediately begin focusing on misinformation aimed at migrants, a problem that has helped to fuel sudden surges at the U.S. southern border in recent years. Human smugglers often spread misinformation about border policies to drum up business.

Last September, for example, confusion around President Joe Biden’s immigration policies combined with messages shared widely across the Haitian community on Meta’s Facebook and WhatsApp platforms led some of the 14,000 migrants to the border town of Del Rio, Texas, where they set up camp. Some were ultimately expelled and were flown out of the U.S.

“We are very concerned that Haitians who are taking the irregular migration path are receiving misinformation that the border is open,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at the time.

The new board also will monitor and prepare for Russian disinformation threats as this year’s midterm elections near and the Kremlin continues an aggressive disinformation campaign around the war in Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly waged misinformation campaigns aimed at U.S. audiences to further divisions around election time and spread conspiracy theories around U.S. COVID-19 vaccines. Most recently, Russian state media outlets, social media accounts and officials have used the internet to call photographs, reporting and videos of dead bodies and bombed buildings in Ukraine fake.

The board will be led by disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz, who has researched Russian misinformation tactics and online harassment.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden, a Democrat, repeatedly said he would push tech companies, including Facebook, to crack down harder on misinformation and conspiracy theories that have overwhelmed social media and its users.

Dozens of Republican lawmakers and pundits took to social media on Wednesday to widely criticize the new board and call for it to be disbanded.

“Rather than police our border, Homeland Security has decided to make policing Americans’ speech its top priority,” a tweet from Missouri’s U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley read, in part. “They’re creating a Disinformation Board.”

DHS said in its statement that the board will “protect privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties” as part of its duties.

Spc. Bishop Evans, who was missing three days before search crews found his body Monday, was among the more than 6,100 guard members stationed on the border as part of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s massive border security mission known as Operation Lone Star. The mission has 43 flotation devices for guard members who are assigned to boat missions, Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer said. Evans was not a boat crew member.

Requests for more flotation devices were first made in February but have been delayed by supply chain issues, Suelzer told lawmakers in the Texas Capitol while facing questions about Evans’ death, low morale and equipment shortages that have rattled the yearlong mission. Guard leaders defended not issuing all soldiers flotation devices because, they said, many are stationed on land.

Suelzer said that since Evans’ death, guard members have been instructed not to go in the water unless they have special training.

“(He) was a human being,” Suelzer said. “He saw a human being drowning and he jumped in the water to save them.”

BISHOP EVANS

Texas National Guard Apr 25, 2022

Family Remembers Bishop Evans as Caring and Giving Texas National Guard Soldier

Texas National Guard Apr 25, 2022

Body of Texas National Guard Soldier Bishop Evans Found

Migrant rescues by Border Patrol are common along Texas’ 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) border with Mexico. Attempted crossings are sometimes deadly.

Brig. Gen. Monie Ulis said that guard members mostly stay on the banks to help migrants and that he could recall only four or five instances where a guard member went into the water.

Evans is at least the fifth guard member who has died during the mission, a number that included suicides, said state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat has called for an inquest into the deaths. The mission includes thousands of state troopers, patrol boats on the Rio Grande and surveillance aircraft, and costs the state more than $2 million a day, said Steve McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Abbott gave guard members unusual authority last year to detain and arrest migrants, but most on the mission are assigned to observation posts. Guard leaders acknowledged morale problems, including equipment shortages and sparse living conditions, but said improvements have been made in recent months.

“Average morale would be about a seven,” Ulis said. “Far above when we first started.”

Questions from conservative and liberal justices during nearly two hours of arguments suggested that the court could free the administration to end the “Remain in Mexico” policy that forces some people seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico for their hearings.

President Joe Biden suspended the program on his first day in office. After Texas and Missouri sued, lower courts required immigration officials to reinstate it, though the current administration has sent far fewer people back to Mexico than its predecessor.

The heart of the legal fight is whether, with far less detention capacity than needed, immigration authorities must send people to Mexico or have the discretion under federal law to release asylum-seekers into the United States while they await their hearings.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, Biden’s top Supreme Court lawyer, told the justices the law does not contain a provision requiring migrants to be returned to Mexico and that there is a “significant public benefit” to releasing migrants who pass criminal background and other checks into the U.S., keeping detention beds free for more dangerous people.

Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, at least one of whom the administration needs to win the case, suggested that the administration had a better argument than the states.

“You lose if the government is right about what significant public interest is,” Barrett said in an exchange with Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone II.

Several justices also picked up on Prelogar’s point that no administration, including Trump’s, fully complied with the requirement to make migrants wait in Mexico.

If the states are reading the law correctly, Justice Clarence Thomas asked, “Wouldn’t it be odd for Congress to leave in place a statute that’s impossible to comply with?”

More 'Remain in Mexico' Policy Coverage

Immigration Dec 7, 2021

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Donald Trump Apr 24, 2022

Supreme Court Weighs Policy for Migrants to Wait in Mexico

Justice Elena Kagan was among members of the court who wondered whether the lower courts were dipping impermissibly into international relations since reinstating the program depends on Mexico’s willingness to accept the migrants and close coordination between the countries.

“What are we supposed to do, drive truckloads of people to Mexico and leave them in Mexico?” Kagan asked Stone.

Justice Samuel Alito appeared to be the strongest voice on the states’ side, questioning the administration’s assertion that it assesses migrants on a case-by-case before releasing them.

Citing statistics from March 2021, Prelogar said that of 220,000 people stopped at the boarder, roughly 80,000 were allowed in.

Alito said the situation seemed akin to people waiting to get into a Washington Nationals game. If they have a ticket and no alcohol or guns, they’re admitted, Alito said.

“That’s basically what you’re doing. You’ve got a little checklist and you go, boom, boom, boom,” Alito said.

About 70,000 people were enrolled in the program, formally known as Migrant Protection Protocols, after President Donald Trump launched it in 2019 and made it a centerpiece of efforts to deter asylum-seekers.

After Biden’s suspension of the program, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ended it in June 2021. In October, DHS produced additional justifications for the policy’s demise, to no avail in the courts.

The program resumed in December, but barely 3,000 migrants had enrolled by the end of March, during a period when authorities stopped migrants about 700,000 times at the border.

The high court pondered what to make of the limited nature of the challenged program. Chief Justice John Roberts said he was sympathetic with the administration’s position that it can’t detain everyone or possibly comply with the law. “Where does that leave us?” he asked.

Those being forced to wait in Mexico widely say they are terrified in dangerous Mexican border cities and find it very hard to find lawyers to handle their asylum hearings.

Democratic-led states and progressive groups are on the administration’s side. Republican-led states and conservative groups have sided with Texas and Missouri. Those include the America First Legal Foundation, led by former Trump aides Stephen Miller and Mark Meadows.

As the court is weighing the asylum policy, the administration is expected to end another key Trump-era border policy that was put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic. It allows authorities to expel migrants without a chance to seek asylum. The decision to end Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law, on May 23 is being legally challenged by 22 states and faces growing division within Biden’s Democratic Party.

A decision in Biden v. Texas, 21-954, is expected by late June.

Abbott said Friday he entered into a security pact with the governor of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas on Friday, the last of four states to give assurances to Abbott that they would do more on the southern side of the border to prevent trafficking.

“All these bridges are open back up to normal trafficking. So, all the goods that used to go from one country to the other at a very rapid pace, they are moving at that rapid pace as we speak right now. With the caveat, and that is, if we do see increased trafficking across the border we will strategically shut down certain bridges,” Abbott said.

This week Abbott announced he reached deals with the governors of Nuevo León, Chihuahua, and Coahuila before announcing Friday a similar agreement with Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca.

Abbott said because the Mexican states are pledging to do more security checks in Mexico, he’s allowing the Texas Department of Public Safety to cease mandatory safety inspections of every commercial vehicle entering the state and return to performing random spot checks.

WAS ANYTHING ILLEGAL FOUND DURING ENHANCED SAFETY CHECKS?

When asked if state troopers had found any illegal drugs, smuggled people, or other contraband during the enhanced inspections, Abbott began to answer the question and then redirected it to DPS Director Steve McCraw who said nothing illegal was found and it was expected that nothing illegal would be found.

“Not surprisingly … there is actually no human trafficking and/or drug trafficking that we’ve been able to detect since we’ve done 100% compliant investigations. In fact, it was an expectation recognizing the cartels know what they’re doing. They don’t like troopers stopping them certainly north of the border and they certainly don’t like 100% inspections of commercial vehicles on the bridges. Once that started we’ve seen a decreased amount of trafficking across the bridges. Common sense,” McCraw said.

“When the cartels know that every vehicle is going to be inspected they’re not going to put their contraband or immigrants they’re smuggling into vehicles at the time,” Abbott added. “It’s no surprise that during the time that 100% of inspections were taking place there was nothing was found.”

Abbott reiterated what he said on Thursday, that DPS troopers removed about 25% of the vehicles inspected for safety violations that made them unsafe to operate according to state laws.

“There were a tremendous number of safety violations that the DPS was able to uncover that may have, for all we know, saved the lives of Texans that these vehicles could have crashed into,” Abbott said.

BETO O’ROURKE SAYS ABBOTT’S INSPECTIONS WERE ‘UNNECESSARY’ AND SECURITY PACTS WERE ‘BLACKMAIL’

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke, who is challenging Gov. Greg Abbott in the governor’s race this fall, said the inspections ordered by the governor were “completely unnecessary” and that the Mexican governors who signed security pacts to end the inspections were essentially forced to do so.

In El Paso on Friday, O’Rourke said the state troopers were only allowed to check for safety violations and were prohibited from checking the cargo hold and therefore couldn’t detect smuggling or drug trafficking even if it was taking place.

“Greg Abbott ordered 100% inspections on all commercial traffic coming through the ports of entry from Mexico into Texas. I want to be really clear this is in addition to all the Customs and Border Protection inspections to guard against human smuggling and illegal drug trafficking,” O’Rourke said. “These were completely unnecessary inspections that also did not allow the inspectors that Greg Abbott put on these bridges to even look inside of the cargo hold. So there was no ability to detect illegal drug trafficking or human smuggling even if it was taking place on these ports of entry. This was completely unnecessary and did absolutely nothing.”

Additionally, O’Rourke said the security agreements Abbott signed with four Mexican governors were the result of blackmail and that the governors had no choice but to sign them if they wanted to keep traffic moving through the ports.

“When reporters yesterday asked her, ‘When will this agreement be implemented?’ and she said ‘We’ve been doing this for the last month.’ This ‘fake news’ that he’s trafficking to the people of Texas. We are not buying it,” O’Rourke said. “This was a manufactured stunt. This was a problem that Greg Abbott created to score political points. Predictably he was on FOX News crowing about this security agreement that he’d achieved.”

“These governors had no choice … This was blackmail, absolutely,” O’Rourke said.

After the Governor’s order jammed ports of entry for days, leaving trucks moving goods from Mexico stalled for hours, the Texas Truckers Association is one of the trade groups which condemned the move. Now president and CEO John Esparza said there’s relief in the industry but a lot of work ahead.

“We know that trucks that were hoping to get through the week moving the freight that they were committed to move are going to be moving that through the weekend, Easter Sunday, doing everything they can to alleviate any further delays with the supply chain,” said Esparza.

He said it could take through the middle of next week to get back on track.

When asked about the economic impact, Esparza said when it comes to produce alone, 80-percent of products coming through the border perished or were delayed. It’s an industry that does 400-billion-dollars in trade each year.

While Abbott warned he’d reinstate the checkpoints again if Mexican governors don’t uphold the agreements, Esparza urged him not to.

“We are merely in the middle of moving these products from point a to point b. It is unfortunate. And at the end of the day, I would consider the truck driver,” said Esparza.

The two-term governor, like many Republican Party leaders, calls illegal immigration and drug smuggling from Mexico a “crisis” and fully blames President Joe Biden. His latest actions follow the Biden administration’s decision to end pandemic-related restrictions on claiming asylum at the border on May 23.

Here are some facts about conditions on the border and Abbott’s response:

HOW MANY MIGRANTS ARE APPEARING AT THE BORDER?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped migrants 164,973 times in February, a daily average of nearly 5,900. March figures will be released soon, but CBP said it stopped migrants an average of 7,101 times a day during the week that ended March 28.

That’s an unusually large number; The last week in March was on pace to establish a new monthly high in Biden’s presidency and one of the busiest ever. The Border Patrol stopped migrants nearly 1.7 million times in the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30 — among the highest since the agency was founded in 1924 — but that number masks a critical difference.

Since March 2020, U.S. authorities have expelled migrants more than 1.7 million times under Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law, using the threat of COVID-19 to deny migrants a chance to seek asylum as required under U.S. law and international treaty. Expulsions carry no legal consequences, encouraging repeat attempts. In the 2021 budget year, more than one of four migrants at the border had been stopped “multiple times,” with repeat crossers stopped an average of more than three times in the previous year. Consequently, the number of migrants who crossed the border is much lower than the number of times authorities have stopped migrants.

WHAT HAS BIDEN DONE?

The Democratic president undid many measures introduced by his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who belittled asylum as a “scam” and said the country was “full.” The Biden administration reversed a rule that generally prohibited domestic and gang violence as grounds for asylum and ended bilateral agreements to send some migrants to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to seek protection there instead of in the United States.

Biden suspended the “Remain in Mexico” policy on his first day in office after the Trump administration forced about 70,000 asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. He was forced to reinstate the policy in December under court order but numbers have been modest. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on April 26 on whether and how Biden can end the policy.

With COVID-19 infection rates dropping, the administration announced on April 1 that it will end Title 42 authority on May 23. Some Democratic members of Congress joined Republican leaders to argue the move was premature and the administration unprepared. The Homeland Security Department says it is preparing for as many as 18,000 daily crossings.

On Thursday, 18 states joined Louisiana, Arizona, and Missouri in a federal lawsuit to keep Title 42 authority in place. The additional states are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Texas is conspicuously absent.

WHAT IS TEXAS DOING?

Last year, Abbott launched a multibillion-dollar border security mission, Operation Lone Star, deploying thousands of state troopers and National Guard members, installing new border barriers, and jailing migrants on trespassing charges. Abbott, who is running for reelection in November, has made it the cornerstone of his administration.

Texas, assuming a role like California’s during Trump’s presidency, has been a top legal adversary to changes in immigration policy. It joined Missouri in the case before the Supreme Court on ending “Remain in Mexico.”

After the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that Title 42 authority was ending, Abbott began inspecting commercial vehicles in addition to CBP’s independent inspections, creating significant delays and backlash from his pro-business allies. He also chartered buses to Washington, D.C., for migrants who volunteered to take them.

Abbott has not said if truck inspectors have found illegal drugs or people crossing the border illegally, but migrants are stopped at ports of entry is only about 5% of CBP’s encounters. The vast majority cross in mountains, deserts, and cities between official crossings.

The dynamic with drug seizures are different, with fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and other hard narcotics being seized overwhelmingly at official crossings instead of between them. Their compact size and lack of odor make them extremely difficult to detect.

IS ANY OF THIS NEW UNDER BIDEN?

No, there have been several spikes in migration since 2014, with a broken asylum system dogging three presidents. The United States became the world’s most popular destination for asylum-seekers in 2017.

Immigration experts refer to “push” factors that compel migrants to leave their homes and “pull” factors that refer to policies in destination countries that may influence decisions on where to go.

“Push” factors include hurricanes, violence, political repression, and poverty, while “pull” factors include real or perceived changes in U.S. policy. One widely cited “pull” factor is a heavily backlogged U.S. asylum system; it takes an immigration judge four years on average to decide a claim for people who are not in custody.

Last month, the Biden administration unveiled a long-discussed and potentially significant change to expand the authority of asylum officers to decide claims, not just initial screenings. It is designed to decide cases in months instead of years but officials say there are no additional funds for its launch, expected in late May, and to expect a slow start.

Abbott said the DPS will continue mandatory inspections of all commercial vehicle traffic entering the state at more than two dozen other international crossings until he has similar assurances of security from the governors of those Mexican states.

Abbott admitted Wednesday the policy he implemented last week led to long delays at the border and said the DPS could suspend the checkpoints on vehicles coming through the state of Nuevo León after striking an agreement with Gov. Samuel Alejandro García Sepúlveda to create checkpoints on the Mexican side of the border.

“Border bridges have become clogged because of a policy by Texas to thoroughly inspect vehicles coming from Mexico,” Abbott said. “Gov. Garcia has begun and will continue enhanced border security enforcement measures on the Nuevo León side of the border … to prevent illegal immigration from Nuevo León into Texas.”

The border between Texas and Nuevo León is about nine miles long and has one crossing at the Laredo-Colombia Solidarity International Bridge.

“Since Nuevo León has increased its security on its side of the border, the Texas Department of Public Safety can return to its previous practice of random searches of vehicles crossing the bridge from Nuevo León,” Abbott said. “The effect of this will be that the bridge from Nuevo León and Texas will return to normal effective immediately, right now. It will remain that way as long as Nuevo León executes this historic agreement.”

The most dramatic backups of commercial trucks along Texas’ 1,200-mile border have occurred at other international bridges that do not share the border with Nuevo León.

Abbott hoped to reach similar agreements with the governors of other Mexican states but said until then the Texas DPS would continue to thoroughly inspect vehicles crossing from those locations.

“Now listen, I understand the concerns that businesses have trying to move products across the border. But I also know well the frustration of my fellow Texans and my fellow Americans caused by the Biden Administration not securing our border,” Abbott said. “The ultimate way to end the clogged border is for President Biden to do his job and to secure the border.”

Abbott then urged those frustrated by the gridlock at the border to call the president or their congressperson and show their support for the continuation of Title 42 expulsions which the Biden Administration has said would end May 23.

Abbott warned border sheriffs on Monday to start preparing now for the roughly 18,000 migrants expected to cross into Texas per day after Title 42 expires.

During Wednesday’s news conference, Abbott said the DPS reported that 25% of the trucks inspected by state troopers were determined to be unsafe and pulled out of service due to mechanical issues such as bad brakes or poor tires. Abbott theorized removing those trucks from the roads may have saved the life of a Texan crossing the street.

TEXAS DEMOCRATS, BETO O’ROURKE RESPOND TO BORDER TRUCK DELAYS

Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is challenging Abbott for governor this November, said Abbot’s directive to search every commercial vehicle crossing the border is “job-killing, inflation-spiking chaos.”

“Greg Abbott’s chaos at the border is crushing businesses, raising prices for Texans, causing supply chain delays, and hurting the economy of our state and this country. While the people of Texas — led by border communities — forced him to back down in Laredo, we will keep the pressure on to end his job-killing, inflation-spiking chaos at every other Texas port of entry,” O’Rourke said.

Texas Democrats released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying the governor’s order to inspect every commercial vehicle intentionally slowed down trade, resulted in losses of $30 million in goods, and is unnecessarily adding to inflation.

FRUSTRATION INCREASES AS DELAYS MOUNT FROM GOVERNOR ABBOTT’S POLICY GRIDLOCKING BORDER CROSSINGS

Traffic problems continued to mount Wednesday upon orders implemented by the governor last week requiring extra inspections of commercial trucks as part of the Republican’s sprawling border security operation.

Since Monday, Mexican truckers have blocked the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge in protest after Abbott last week directed state troopers to stop and inspect trucks coming into Texas. Unusually long backups — some lasting 12 hours or longer — have stacked up elsewhere along Texas’ border.

Frustration spread within members of Abbott’s own party: Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, called on the governor to cease his commercial truck inspection project, calling it a “catastrophic policy which has now led to Mexican truckers blockading the border” and is forcing some trucks to reroute hundreds of miles to Arizona.

“You cannot solve a border crisis by creating another crisis at the border. These Level 1 inspections serve as a ‘clog in the drain’ and divert commerce and jobs to more western ports of entry,” Miller said in a statement. “This is not solving the border problem, it is increasing the cost of food and adding to supply chain shortages. Such a misguided program is going to quickly lead to $2 lemons, $5 avocados, and worse.”

Not even a week into the inspections, the Mexican government said Tuesday that Abbott’s order was causing “serious damage” to trade and that cross-border traffic had plummeted to a third of normal levels.

In a statement Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Abbott’s border delays were disrupting the supply chain and raising prices for families in Texas and around the United States.

“Gov. Abbott’s unnecessary and redundant inspections of trucks transiting ports of entry between Texas and Mexico are causing significant disruptions to the food and automobile supply chains, delaying manufacturing, impacting jobs, and raising prices for families in Texas and across the country,” Psaki said. “Local businesses and trade associations are calling on Gov. Abbott to reverse this decision because trucks are facing lengthy delays exceeding five hours at some border crossings and commercial traffic has dropped by as much as 60%. The continuous flow of legitimate trade and travel and CBP’s ability to do its job should not be obstructed. Gov. Abbott’s actions are impacting people’s jobs and the livelihoods of hardworking American families.”

Greg Abbott

Greg Abbott Apr 11, 2022

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Texas-Mexico Border Apr 7, 2022

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The gridlock is the fallout of an initiative that Abbott said is needed to curb human trafficking and the flow of drugs. But critics question how the inspections are meeting that objective, while business owners and experts complain of financial losses and warn U.S. grocery shoppers could notice shortages as soon as this week.

“I do describe it as a crisis because this is not the normal way of doing business,” said Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez, whose county includes the bridge in Pharr. “You’re talking about billions of dollars. When you stop that process, I mean, there are many, many, many, many people that are affected.”

The shutdowns and slowdowns have set off some of the widest backlashes to date of Abbott’s multibillion-dollar border operation, which the two-term governor has made the cornerstone of his administration. Texas already has thousands of state troopers and National Guard members on the border and has converted prisons into jails for migrants arrested on state trespassing charges.

Abbott warned last week that inspections would “dramatically slow” border traffic, but he hasn’t addressed the backups or port shutdowns since then. His office didn’t reply to a message asking for a comment Tuesday.

The disruptions at some of the world’s busiest international trade ports could pose economic and political threats to Abbott, who is seeking a third term in November. Democrat Beto O’Rourke, the former presidential candidate who is running against Abbott for governor, said during a stop in Pharr on Tuesday that the inspections were doing nothing to halt the flow of migrants and were worsening supply chain issues.

He was joined by Joe Arevalo, owner of Keystone Cold, a cold-storage warehouse on the border. He said that although Texas state troopers have always inspected some trucks crossing the border “they’ve never, ever, ever held up a complete system or a complete supply chain.”

An estimated 3,000 trucks cross the Pharr bridge on a normal day, according to the National Freight Transportation Chamber. The Pharr bridge is the largest land port for produce, such as leafy green vegetables, entering the U.S.

Mexico supplies about two-thirds of the produce sold in Texas.

“We’re living through a nightmare, and we’re already suffering through a very delicate supply chain from the pandemic and to try to regrow the business,” Arevalo said.

The additional inspections are conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety, which said that as of Monday, it had inspected more than 3,400 commercial vehicles and placed more than 800 “out of service” for violations that included defective brakes, tires, and lighting. It made no mention of whether the truck inspections had turned up migrants or drugs.

The order’s impact quickly spread beyond Texas: U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials confirmed Tuesday that there was another blockade at the Mexican customs facility at the Santa Teresa port of entry in southern New Mexico, not far from El Paso. Those protests are misguided since New Mexico has nothing to do with Texas’ inspection policies, said Jerry Pacheco, executive director of the International Business Accelerator and president of the Border Industrial Association.

He said the protests were costing businesses millions of dollars a day.

“Everybody down here is on a just-in-time inventory system,” Pancheo said. “It’s going to affect all of us, all of us in the United States. Your car parts are going to be delivered late, your computer — if you ordered a Dell or HP tablet, those are going to be disrupted.”

Ed Anderson, a professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, compared the disruptions to those caused by February’s trucker blockade in Canada that forced auto plants on both sides of the border to shut down or scale back production. During that protest, trucks looking for other entries to cross into the U.S. wound up causing congestion at other bridges, a scenario that Anderson said might now be repeated on the southern border.

Anderson said consumers would likely begin noticing the effects by the end of this week, if not sooner.

“Either prices are going to spike or shelves are going to be low,” he said.

The governor spoke to the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition in El Paso Monday morning. He said with Title 42 ending in May the Biden Administration has said the state could see about 18,000 people coming across the border every day for the next year.

“It is going to completely overwhelm law enforcement capabilities in all of these communities but especially in the smaller populated communities where the law enforcement officers, numerically, are not going to be able to keep up with the level of activity that’s taking place on the ground,” Abbott said. “It’s going to lead to extraordinary demands on health services on community services … for every single county, especially in the border region, but candidly across the state of Texas. I think communities are not prepared for it.”

Abbott said last week that roughly six million people could cross the border in the coming year, from May to May, based on the Biden Administration’s estimate. That’s nearly as many people as the 7.6 million who live in the Metroplex.

Last week Abbott announced that he was planning on filling charter buses with migrants who’ve crossed the border and would direct those buses to the nation’s capital.

“Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants that have been dropped off by the Biden Administration to Washington, D.C. We are sending them to the U.S. Capital where the Biden Administration can more immediately address the needs of the people they are allowing to cross the border,” Abbott said last week.

The governor told the sheriffs Monday every county has access to a bus to send migrants to Washington D.C. or another Texas city that’ll be able to better handle a large number of people.

“If [the] Border Patrol drops people off in your county, you will be able to work with the state to transport those people out of your county to a location where they will immediately connected with either Border Patrol officials, ICE officials, or other appropriate federal officials,” Abbott said.

In a statement released after the governor’s announcement last week, the governor’s office said only migrants who volunteer to be transported will be allowed on the buses and that they must show documentation from the Department of Homeland Security.

Title 42 is a pandemic-era emergency health order that allowed the U.S. Border Patrol to turn away migrants at the border. The Biden Administration said the order will end on May 23.

But the way former Trump immigration officials see it, Texas and Arizona can pick up where the federal government leaves off once the policy ends. Their plan involves a novel interpretation of the U.S. Constitution to have the National Guard or state police forcibly send migrants to Mexico, without regard to immigration laws and law enforcement procedures. Border enforcement has always been a federal responsibility, and in Texas, state leaders have not been pushing for such a move.

Tom Homan, the former acting director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump, said at a border security conference in San Antonio last week he had spoken with Abbott but gave no indication about whether the two-term governor supported the idea.

“We’ve had discussions with his attorneys in his office, ‘Is there a way to use this clause within the Constitution where it talks about invasion?’” Homan said during the Border Security Expo.

Homan on Tuesday described the response from Abbott’s office, which he said took place about three months ago, as “non-committal but willing to listen.”

In Arizona, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey has also been under pressure within his party to declare that the state is being invaded and use extraordinary powers normally reserved for war. But Ducey, who is term-limited and not on the ballot in 2022, has not embraced the theory and has avoided commenting directly on it.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, issued a legal opinion in February declaring that Ducey has the power to use National Guard troops and state law enforcement to forcibly send migrants back. Brnovich is locked in a tough Republican U.S. Senate primary in which border security is a top issue.

Driving the effort on the right is the Center for Renewing America, a conservative policy think tank led by former Trump administration officials. It includes Ken Cuccinelli, an immigration hard-liner and former Homeland Security official under Trump. He argued that states are entitled to defend themselves from immediate danger or invasion, as it is defined by the “invasion clause,” under the “states self-defense clause.”

While speaking Tuesday to a conservative talk radio station, Abbott’s remarks about constitutional authority were in relation to Congress, which he said had the only power to reduce the flow of migrants.

“We’ll be taking unprecedented action,” Abbott told radio station KCRS. “Congress has to stop talking about it, has to stop complaining about it, has to stop going to the border and looking at it. Congress has to take action, just like Texas is taking action.”

Asked if he considered what was happening on the Texas border “an invasion,” Abbott did not use those words but said he would be discussing it Wednesday.

Cuccinelli said in practice, he envisions the plan would look similar to the enforcement of Title 42, which circumvented U.S. obligations under American law and international treaty to provide asylum. He said he has not spoken with Abbott and said the governor’s current sweeping border mission, known as Operation Lone Star, has put little dent in the number of people crossing the border. The mission has also drawn criticism from Guard members over long deployments and little to do, and some arrests have appeared to have no connection to border security.

“Until you are actually returning people to Mexico, what you are doing will have no effect,” Cuccinelli said.

Emily Berman, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Houston, said the “invasion clause” cited by proponents is tucked into a broader constitutional assurance that the U.S. must defend states from invasion and domestic violence. Additionally, she said, the “state self-defense clause” says states cannot engage in warlike actions or foreign policy unless invaded.

Berman said she hasn’t seen the constitutional clauses used since the 1990s, when the courts ruled that they did not have jurisdiction to decide what qualified an invasion, but believed that one could only be done by another governmental entity.

For example, Berman said, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia can be qualified as one because it is an outside government breaching another country’s boundaries with the use of military force.

“Just because the state says that it is an invasion that doesn’t necessarily make it so, it is not clear to me what additional legal authority that conveys on them,” Berman said, adding that state officials can enforce state laws, but the line is drawn at what the federal law allows.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat whose district includes the Texas border, has criticized the Biden administration over border security and ending Title 42. But he does not support states trying to use new powers that would let them “do whatever they want.”

“I think it should be more of a partnership instead of saying, ‘Federal government, we don’t think you’re doing enough, and why don’t we go ahead and do our own border security?’” he said.

The use of public health powers had been widely criticized by Democrats and immigration advocates as an excuse for the United States to shirk its obligations to provide a haven to people fleeing persecution. The policy went into effect under President Donald Trump in March 2020. Since then, migrants trying to enter the U.S. have been expelled more than 1.7 million times.

The policy, known as the Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law to prevent communicable disease, will end on paper, but it will not take effect until May 23, to allow border officials time to prepare. The Associated Press first reported the change earlier this week.

The policy was increasingly hard to justify scientifically as restrictions ended across the U.S.

The federal order says efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to provide vaccines to migrants at the border will step up in the next two months.

“After considering current public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight COVID-19 (such as highly effective vaccines and therapeutics), the CDC director has determined that an order suspending the right to introduce migrants into the United States is no longer necessary,” the CDC said in a statement.

The decision is expected to draw more migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border. Even before it was officially announced, more than a dozen migrants excitedly ran out of their dormitory at the Good Samaritan shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, asking about it.

DHS said this week that about 7,100 migrants were coming daily, compared with an average of about 5,900 a day in February — on pace to match or exceed highs from last year, 2019, and other peak periods. But border officials said they are planning for as many as 18,000 arrivals daily, and that seems certain to cause challenges for border-region Democrats in tight reelection races — with some warning that the Biden administration is unprepared to handle the situation.

Homeland Security said it created a Southwest Border Coordinating Center to respond to any sharp increases, with MaryAnn Tierney, a regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as interim leader and a Border Patrol official as deputy.

Officials also are working on the additional ground and air transportation options and tents to house the expected influx, and the Border Patrol has already hired-on civilians.

Instead of conducting patrols and uncovering smuggling activity, its agents spend about 40% of their time caring for people already in custody and administrative tasks that are unrelated to border security.

The agency hoped to free up agents to go back into the field by hiring civilians for jobs such as making sure that microwaved burritos are served properly, checking holding cells, and the time-consuming work of collecting information for immigration court papers.

Still, administration officials acknowledged that the fixes are only temporary measures.

“The Biden-Harris administration is committed to pursuing every avenue within our authority to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and stay true to our values,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “Yet a long-term solution can only come from comprehensive legislation that brings lasting reform to a fundamentally broken system.”

The limits went into place in March 2020 under the Trump administration as coronavirus cases soared. While officials said at the time that it was a way to keep COVID-19 out of the United States, there always has been criticism that the restrictions were used as an excuse to seal the border to migrants unwanted by then-President Donald Trump. It was perhaps the broadest of Trump’s actions to restrict crossings and crackdown on migrants.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) rebuked the end of Title 42 expulsions, saying the Biden Administration’s border policies are a disaster.

“Ending Title 42 expulsions will signal to cartels and migrants alike that our southern border is now wide open—inciting even more violence, more trafficking, and more lawlessness. President Biden clearly has no intention to secure the border by faithfully executing Congress’ command to detain and deport illegal immigrants. His actions will only further endanger Texans, and the State of Texas must take even more unprecedented action to keep our communities safe by using any and all constitutional powers to protect its own territory,” Abbott said in a statement.

CDC officials lifted part of the order last month, ending the limits for children traveling to the border alone. In August, U.S. border authorities began testing children traveling alone in their busiest areas: Positives fell to 6% in the first week of March from a high of nearly 20% in early February.

Asylum limits have been applied unevenly by nationality, depending largely on costs and diplomatic relations with home countries. Many migrants have been spared from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and, more recently, Ukraine. Homeland Security officials wrote border authorities this month that Ukrainians may be exempt, saying Russia’s invasion “created a humanitarian crisis.”

All but two Cuban women tested negative for COVID-19 that February morning. They were quarantined to motel rooms, while other migrants boarded chartered buses to Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport for flights across the U.S.

Theirs were among just seven of 5,301 tests the Regional Center for Border Health near Yuma, Arizona, did last month for released migrants that were positive — a rate of 0.1%.

COVID-19 rates are plunging among migrants crossing the border from Mexico as the Biden administration faces a Tuesday deadline to end or extend sweeping restrictions on asylum that are aimed at limiting the virus’ spread. Lower rates raise more questions about scientific grounds for a public health order that has caused migrants to be expelled from the United States more than 1.7 million times since March 2020 without a chance to request asylum.

While there is no aggregate rate for migrants, test results from several major corridors for illegal border crossings suggest it is well below levels that have triggered concerns among U.S. officials.

In California, 54 of 2,877 migrants tested positive the first two weeks of March, according to the state Department of Social Services. That’s a rate of just 1.9%, down from a peak of 28.2% on Jan. 8.

In Pima County, Arizona, which includes Tucson, the seven-day positivity rate among migrants didn’t exceed 1.3% in early March and dropped to 0.9% on March 10. The seven-day rate topped 5% on only two days during the final three months of last year. Then, as the omicron variant spread, it surged to double-digits for most of January, peaking at 19.2% on Jan. 12 and falling below 5% on Feb. 12.

McAllen, Texas, the largest city in the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, has a higher rate among migrants — 9.2% on March 2 — but it is also falling and is consistently lower than the general population. Only two of 24 border counties have had high rates in the general population: Hidalgo, which includes McAllen, and Yuma in Arizona.

The rate among migrants in McAllen peaked at 20.8% the last week of January, when it was double that in the general population. It bottomed at 1.4% the last week of November, when the general population was at 6.2%.

As mask mandates have lifted, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is under mounting pressure to fully restore asylum by ending Title 42, named for a 1944 public health law. Critics say it has been an excuse to wriggle out of asylum obligations under U.S. law and international treaty.

Justin Walker, a federal appeals court judge in Washington, wrote this month that it was “far from clear that the CDC order serves any purpose” for public health.

alker, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, noted that the Biden administration hasn’t provided detailed evidence to support the restrictions.

“The CDC’s order looks in certain respects like a relic from an era with no vaccines, scarce testing, few therapeutics, and little certainty,” Walker wrote for a three-judge panel.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky noted falling rates when she ended asylum limits on unaccompanied child migrants on March 11, while keeping them for adults and families with kids. In August, U.S. border authorities began testing children traveling alone in their busiest areas: positives fell to 6% in the first week of March from a high of nearly 20% in early February.

The White House and Homeland Security Department have said decisions on Title 42 rest with the CDC. Walensky told reporters Wednesday that the CDC was reviewing data ahead of next week’s deadline, noting that its two-month renewal in late January came near the peak of the omicron variant.

Scientific arguments for Title 42 have met with skepticism from the start.

The Associated Press reported in 2020 that Vice President Mike Pence directed the CDC to use its emergency powers, overruling agency scientists who said there was no evidence it would slow the coronavirus.

Anne Schuchat, the second-highest ranking CDC until last May, told members of Congress after her departure that the asylum limits lacked foundation as a public health measure when introduced.

“The bulk of the evidence at that time did not support this policy proposal,” she said.

Title 42 also has supporters. In a ruling this month in a lawsuit over the order, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth, Texas, said: “There should be no disagreement that the current immigration policies should be focused on stopping the spread of COVID-19.”

Even while large-scale expulsions were carried out under Title 42, the U.S. processed more than 2.8 million cases under normal immigration laws, which allow people to seek asylum.

With costs and strained diplomatic relations limiting expulsions to many countries, migrants are often released to nongovernmental groups and ordered to appear later in immigration court. The groups test for COVID-19.

In El Paso, Annunciation House saw positives plunge to around 2% among the roughly 175 migrants it tested daily in early March, said director Ruben Garcia.

Positives were close to 40% at the height of the omicron variant, he said.

In Arizona, at the Regional Center for Binational Health, monthly rates peaked at 3% last year.

Still, Amanda Aguirre, its president, is wary about lifting Title 42.

“My concern is that at any time we’re going to see new variants coming into this area,” she said.

The Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, which tests migrants in the busy Del Rio, Texas, area, said it went several weeks without a single positive.

“Yesterday there was one positive and today there was one positive — that’s out of hundreds tested,” the group wrote last week in response to questions.

Jose Angel Becerra, 20, of Fyffe was taken into custody by a team of local police and federal officers on Monday, the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. A photo shared on social media showed the man, restrained at the hands and ankles, sitting on the ground with officers all around.

Becerra was wanted in McAllen, Texas, on charges of capital murder, attempted capital murder, and aggravated assault with a weapon, the statement said.

Becerra was arrested in what was considered a gang-related shooting involving a botched drug deal in the Rio Grande Valley when he was a teenager, WDEF-TV reported. Authorities didn’t indicate how he got to Alabama or how long he had been in the state.

Officers were negotiating with the man when he ran away, the statement said, but he was captured quickly.

“There is no other way to cross legally and, for that reason, I think it’s good,” he said at a migrant shelter in Reynosa, a Mexican border city where he has been living for nine months with his wife and their 5-year-old daughter.

Sanchez’s optimism reflects the desperation of migrants who have seen asylum shut down under U.S. restrictions that deny humanitarian protections on grounds of preventing the spread of the coronavirus, another Trump-era policy that the Biden administration supports.

The U.S. returned its first asylum-seekers from Brownsville, Texas, starting Jan. 25, under its “Migrant Protection Protocols” policy. It was barely noticed — the latest step in a slow-moving rollout across the border to make asylum hearings available to migrants who wait in Mexico.

So far, “MPP 2.0” pales compared to pandemic-related restrictions on seeking asylum at the border. Only 381 migrants had been returned to Mexico to wait for hearings from Dec. 6, when it resumed in El Paso, Texas, through Wednesday, according to the U.N. migration agency.

U.S. authorities expelled migrants more than 1.5 million times without an opportunity to claim asylum since March 2020 under the pandemic restrictions known as Title 42 authority, named for a 1944 public health law. In December alone, they were expelled nearly 80,000 times.

Walter Alexis Beltran said staying at a camp of some 2,000 migrants in Reynosa’s central plaza with his wife and 4-year-old daughter was better than living at home in El Salvador. The optometrist charges 25 cents to charge migrants’ phones with a battery he purchased with his last savings.

Beltran has been living at the camp for four months, disappointed that U.S. authorities sent him back to Mexico under Title 42 authority without a chance to make his case for asylum. He said he paid a smuggler $4,500 to reach the U.S. from Mexico.

“MPP has advantages and disadvantages,” Beltran said amid a labyrinth of tents. “The disadvantage is that it’s dangerous here.”

Their hopes may be misplaced. Less than 1% of claims were granted among more than 70,000 people in MPP from its launch in January 2019 to when President Joe Biden suspended it on his first day in office a year ago, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. About half were pending and the rest were denied or dismissed.

In August, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee in Amarillo, Texas, ordered that the policy be reinstated “in good faith,” subject to Mexico’s acceptance, triggering months of intense bilateral talks. Biden has been highly critical of the policy, largely because it exposes migrants to extreme violence while waiting in Mexico.

Despite the appearance of asylum being virtually banned, U.S. authorities process about six of every 10 people who cross illegally under immigration laws, which include the right to seek asylum. Nearly all of them — about 100,000 in December alone — are released or detained in the U.S. while judges consider their cases. The administration has not said why so many can seek asylum while remaining in the U.S. — and so many can’t.

More clarity about U.S. policies is needed, said Abraham Barberi, founder of the Dulce Refugio de Matamoros migrant shelter east of Reynosa, who is in regular contact with U.S. authorities.

“Their goal is fewer people coming and discouraging people but they have to make clear who can come and who can’t,” Barberi said. “People need clear direction.”

Talks to resume MPP began every other week after the judge’s order in August and became more frequent as negotiators tackled a growing number of sticking points and logistics and as small migrant caravans moved through southern Mexico.

From the start, Mexico worried about returning people with court dates in the U.S. to the state of Tamaulipas, considered the border’s most dangerous area. It lies across from Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings.

The Biden administration started “MPP 2.0” in El Paso with plans to process 30 to 50 people a day there, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. They fell far short, even after extending the policy to San Diego in early January.

Of 256 asylum-seekers returned from El Paso as of Jan. 12, Nicaraguans accounted for about three of every five with Venezuelans and Cubans making up most of the rest, according to Human Rights First, an advocacy group.

The Biden administration has declined to say how many asylum-seekers have been returned to Mexico with court dates in the U.S. since the policy resumed and has not provided a breakdown by nationality.

The Homeland Security Department said in response to questions that migrants can’t choose to participate in MPP and that the policy is applied to those who cannot be expelled under pandemic restrictions. It hasn’t said who those people are, but Mexico only accepts people from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador under the U.S. public health order. Others from Western hemisphere countries are released with orders to appear in court or detained in the U.S. until they can be flown home, making them prime candidates for MPP.

Migrants keep arriving at the Reynosa camp. Ruth Rubio, Marvin Lopez and their 6-year-old daughter fled Honduras after two of Rubio’s siblings were killed in gang violence. Without guidance from the U.S. government, they are waiting indefinitely to find out if there’s a way to apply for asylum without crossing the border illegally. Rubio’s 20-year-old daughter, who was wounded in Honduras, was allowed to wait in the U.S. pending an asylum decision.

They are interested in the reinstated policy to wait in Mexico for court hearings in the U.S. It is expected to expand soon to the Texas border cities of Laredo and Eagle Pass.

“If it’s the only way (to get asylum in the U.S.), it’s welcome,” said Juan Antonio Sierra of the Pastoral for Human Mobility in Matamoros, a migrant aid group affiliated with the Catholic Church.

Spagat reported from San Diego. Ben Fox in Washington contributed.

The 36-year-old school teacher living with her parents could no longer make ends meet in the face of triple-digit inflation. They traveled by bus from the western Venezuela oilfields to Medellin in the mountains of Colombia, where they boarded a flight to Mexico.

On Tuesday, mother and daughter attempted to ford the Rio Grande to Del Rio, Texas, with other migrants and smugglers. Victoria Lugo Mayor was swept away by the current, her body recovered later by Mexican authorities. Her mother made it across and was detained by U.S. Border Patrol.

“It’s very painful…. It’s a powerful blow to the family,” Guillermo Castillo, Victoria’s uncle, said by phone from Venezuela.

Mexico announced this month it would impose the visa requirement on Venezuela beginning Friday, based on a tenfold increase in the number of Venezuelan citizens arriving in Mexico in recent years seeking to travel “in an irregular manner to a third country,” a clear reference to the United States.

Last year, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration offered temporary legal residency to several hundred thousand Venezuelans who have fled their country’s economic and political crisis, but has leaned on Mexico to help slow the flow of migrants to the shared border.

On Dec. 11, Mexico suspended a 17-year-old program that had allowed Brazilian citizens to enter without a visa. The move came after Mexico detected an uptick in Brazilian migrants traveling to Mexico with the intention of reaching the United States.

“This case of the girl lays bare the drama that Venezuelans who are forced to leave our country are living through,” said Carlos Vecchio, diplomatic representative of Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaido in Washington. “The painful thing is that the tragedy would be so great that they are capable of risking their lives.” He noted that some 80,000 Venezuelans entered the U.S. illegally last year, more than six times as many as the previous year.

The United Nations has estimated that more than 6 million Venezuelans have left the country in recent years, more than 10% of the population. The Venezuelan economy has cratered under the administration of President Nicolas Maduro.

But Vecchio doubted Mexico’s visa requirement would stop Venezuelans from using Mexico as a bridge to the United States. Until the root of the problem — the country’s economic, political and social crises — is dealt with “there will not be a way to stop the exodus.”

Mayor was released by Border Patrol with a notice to appear in court. She was assisted by a local humanitarian group in Del Rio. Vecchio’s office was working with U.S. and Mexican authorities to bring Victoria’s body to the United States.

Castillo, Victoria’s uncle, said that Mayor could no longer raise her daughter in Maracaibo, where the collapse of the oil industry has led to chronic shortages of gasoline and failures of the water system.

“You have to try to leave and give an opportunity to the children because here sadly, here there is no future,” said Castillo, who works as kitchen help on an oil barge.

Mayor’s sister, Mayibeth Mayor, told local news site El Pitazo, that her sister and niece left Jan. 13, a week after Mexico announced that the visa requirement would begin Jan. 21.

Castillo said he did not know how much Mayor spent for the trip, but knew it was so much that no one else from the family could accompany her. “There isn’t the money right now because what you can get is to somewhat eat,” he said.

In the Mexican border city of Ciudad Acuna this week, before crossing the Rio Grande, Mayor sent a photograph of herself and Victoria, dressed in a red jacket and jeans, to her family.

“She was the joy of the house,” Castillo said.

The changing dynamic has to do with the reversal of the legal fortunes of abortion rights on both sides of the border and the expertise of Mexican activists in helping women overcome legal and social barriers.

In September, Mexico’s Supreme Court issued a decision declaring that abortion was not a crime in the heavily Roman Catholic nation. That same month, the most restrictive abortion law in the United States went into effect in Texas. And the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on a case this year that could throw out the 1973 decision guaranteeing women access to abortions, potentially allowing nearly two-dozen states already with laws in place to severely restrict or ban abortion.

This week, advocates from both sides of the border plan to develop strategies to circumvent new restrictions and find ways to coordinate assistance for women who want to safely end their pregnancies, including getting abortion pills to women in the U.S.

“We want to create networks to put the pills in the hands of women who need them,” especially immigrants and women in vulnerable situations, said Veronica Cruz, director of Las Libres or “The Free,” an abortion advocacy group in Mexico.

The pills Cruz refers to are misoprostol and mifepristone, a two-drug combination used for medical abortions during the first 12 weeks. Misoprostol, which was used to treat ulcers, doesn’t need medical prescription in Mexico and can end a pregnancy alone but is more effective in combination with mifepristone, which does need prescription but the advocate groups get for free from donors.

The World Health Organization and International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics endorse their use and they have been widely used for abortions in Europe and other parts of the world.

In the United States more than 4 million women have had medical abortions since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved those drugs in 2000 with a doctor’s prescription. The FDA eliminated a 20-year-old requirement in December that women had to pick up the medication in person so now they will be able to get a prescription via an online consultation and receive the pills through the mail.

But more than half of U.S. states have local restrictions on medical abortions — such as the need to have a physician in the same room — that make it complicated or unfeasible to carry out the practice at home.

Jacqueline Ayers, vice president of Planned Parenthood, said opponents are using “medically unnecessary restrictions put in place by out-of-touch politicians.”

Some women living in U.S. border areas have for years crossed to Mexican pharmacies to buy misoprostol, in some cases to avoid the cost of a clinic abortion or simply because it is easier and the drugs are cheaper in Mexico.

“I really didn’t want to deal with all the restrictions and unnecessary stress that goes along with the abortion in a clinic so I started looking into the medical abortion options,” said Liz Stunz, a graduate student at the University of Texas-El Paso, who ended her pregnancy with a pill from Ciudad Juarez in 2015.

Cruz, a lawyer, said advocates will look closely at the new Texas law to ensure that the women and those assisting them are not put in jeopardy.

Her group, Las Libres, has been assisting Mexican women with home abortions since 2000, including safely getting the pills to even the most remote locations. They argue that no medical supervision is needed during the first 12 weeks.

At that time, abortion was illegal in all of Mexico and Las Libres was known for successfully petitioning courts to free poor and Indigenous women accused of having abortions. Much of the stigma remains, but now it is legal in four states and the September decision by the Supreme Court decriminalizing it has given momentum to efforts to strike it from state penal codes throughout the country.

More established groups like Las Libres have trained others in advocacy network, a push that accelerated after Mexico City became the first place to legalize abortion in 2007.

At the border, it wasn’t necessary for Mexican women to cross to clinics in the United States anymore. “We no longer needed a clinic, nor health professionals, and the process was safe and much simpler and affordable,” said Crystal P. Lira, part of the Tijuana advocacy collective called Feminist Accompaniment – Tijuana Safe Abortion Network.

Now offers of assistance from these groups, especially during the pandemic, circle the globe.

A message on social media from Las Libres garnered inquiries from as far away as India. An animated video from a small advocacy group in Mexicali, across from California, spread through Peru, Ecuador and Argentina, said Perla Martinez, one of the group’s three members.

With the pandemic forcing people into increasingly virtual existences, the advocates’ assistance moved onto platforms like WhatsApp and Zoom too. There they can give instructions, send advice, even judge whether the bleeding is normal and if necessary refer them to a doctor with advice on what to say to avoid legal trouble. But generally “everything flows in a positive way,” said Lira of the Tijuana group, emphasizing the most important thing is that the women feel they are not alone.

Since the Texas law went into effect prohibiting abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity — usually around six weeks, before some women know they’re pregnant — a growing number of women have sought abortions outside the state. The Texas law also allows private citizens to sue doctors or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.

Texas conservative groups and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated the new law. “The life of every unborn child with a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion,” Abbott said.

Mexican advocates have begun receiving more messages from women across the border, including from migrants. Those living in border areas without legal status can’t drive to major U.S. cities even within Texas without passing through Border Patrol internal checkpoints.

Some of the advocates see it as an opportunity to pay back the assistance Mexican women received at a time when the U.S. was the only option for many to access abortion services.

“It’s not just abortion for abortion’s (sake) that is fundamental,” said Lira, who had an abortion in a U.S. clinic in 2012, but now advocates for abortions at home. Advocates want to rethink how to meet women’s needs on both sides of the border. “There is also a vision behind it, a way of working, of organizing ourselves.”

AP videojournalist Alicia Fernandez in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and writer Claudia Torrens in New York contributed to this report.

Agents found four undeclared spider monkeys in a duffle bag last week.

The woman tried to get through customs at the Progreso International Bridge when officers conducting a secondary search of her 2017 Jeep Patriot found the spider monkeys in a duffle bag.

“While conducting their inspections, our officers will often encounter a myriad of prohibited agriculture products,” said Port Director Walter Weaver, Port of Progreso. “Sometimes these encounters yield hidden exotic animals, such as in this case.”

Spider monkeys are considered New World monkeys which are found in tropical forests of Central and South America, including southern Mexico, and are considered endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

The woman, who was a U.S. citizen, was fined and the monkeys returned to Mexico.

The cameras will be used during the test by 55 members of the SWAT-like special response teams at Homeland Security Investigations in Houston, Newark, New Jersey, and New York, a senior official told reporters.

Homeland Security Investigations, which focuses on transnational federal crimes such as drug and human trafficking and fraud, is a component of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE.

The senior ICE official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity to provide details on the program before the announcement, said the agency expects later to expand the pilot to include officers who conduct immigration enforcement arrests.

The program, even though only a test, represents an expansion of the use of a technology already widely used in state and local law enforcement. Federal agencies that use them include the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“With its body worn camera pilot, ICE is making an important statement that transparency and accountability are essential components of our ability to fulfill our law enforcement mission and keep communities safe,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in announcing the program.

Special agents with Homeland Security Investigations are expected to use the body cams when carrying out such actions as making pre-planned arrests, questioning suspects and executing search warrants.

The footage could be available to defense lawyers in criminal cases as part of the discovery process as well as–to a more limited degree and with restrictions–to others under the Freedom of Information Act, the official said.

The pilot program is intended to evaluate the cost of the program and the effectiveness of the equipment, and a summary of the findings is expected to be released.

DHS is negotiating aspects of the program with the union that represents ICE enforcement officers, and officials did not say when that part of the pilot would start.

Editor’s Note: In a story published Dec. 21 about the use of body cameras by an investigative unit of the Department of Homeland Security, The Associated Press erroneously reported that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Phoenix and Detroit were the first federal officers to wear body cams. Other federal agencies, including the Forest Service, deployed them earlier.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement this week that wall building projects begun by the Defense Department within the Border Patrol’s sectors in California, Arizona and parts of Texas will be turned over to his agency so any safety and environmental concerns can be addressed.

Work will include installing drainage systems to prevent flooding, erosion control and slope stabilization, construction and improvement of access roads and removal of building materials that will no longer be used.

It was unclear when cleanup and any remediation work will begin.

CBP will also close any small gaps that remain open from prior construction and finish work on incomplete gates, including inoperable storm gates that need to open during the rainy season.

Mayorkas said the the Biden administration is still calling on Congress to cancel any remaining border wall funding left over from former President Donald Trump’s time in office and instead fund technology and other kinds of border security measures it considers more effective.

The Trump-era policy makes asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

The U.N. International Organization for Migration said the two migrants were sent to Mexico over a bridge in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. The U.N. agency did not provide the nationalities of the two.

The two were greeted by Mexican officials who provided them with documents, and U.N. officials gave them coronavirus tests and took them to a shelter. Mexico says the U.S. government has agreed to vaccinate all migrants returned under the program.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden reinstated the policy Monday to comply with a court order and agreed to changes and additions demanded by Mexico.

The returns were scheduled to begin in El Paso with up to 50 migrants to be returned daily to Ciudad Juarez, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because details were not made public.

The Homeland Security Department confirmed that returns began at one location and will be expanded to six others. It declined to identify the launch city or how many migrants will be processed, citing “operational security reasons.”

Revival of the “Remain in Mexico” policy comes even as the Biden administration maneuvers to end it in a way that survives legal scrutiny. Biden scrapped the policy, but a lawsuit by Texas and Missouri forced him to put it back into effect, subject to Mexico’s acceptance.

The U.S. has pledged to try to complete cases within 180 days, a response to Mexico’s concerns that applicants will languish in a court system that is backlogged with 1.5 million cases.

About 70,000 asylum-seekers were forced to wait in Mexico, often for months, under the policy that President Donald Trump introduced in January 2019 and which Biden suspended on his first day in office.

Biden’s version expands the policy to migrants from Western Hemisphere countries, while Trump largely limited it to the hemisphere’s Spanish-speaking countries. Mexicans continue to be exempt.

The expansion is especially significant for Haitians, who formed a huge camp in the Texas border town of Del Rio in September. Brazilians, who were largely spared under Trump, may also be heavily affected.

U.S. authorities will ask migrants if they fear being returned to Mexico instead of relying on them to raise concerns unprompted. If migrants express fear, they will be screened and have 24 hours to find an attorney or representative.