“I wasn’t there on Sunday but I was there really early Monday,” writer and El Paso resident Ivan Pierre Aguirre, who documented some of the migrants’ crossing of Rio Grande into the Texan city, told Newsweek. “For El Paso, it means our recourses are going to put to the test… again.”
Aguirre reported about how the El Paso community came through for the migrants as temperatures dropped to near freezing overnight in the past few days, while people waited to be processed by border patrol. Residents brought coats to those sleeping in the streets of the city and even donated a clean mattress, according to Aguirre.
On Tuesday, Cristina Zapata, another El Paso resident, told K-FOX journalist Ariana Parra that she was helping the migrants get food, internet, an Uber, plane tickets and “whatever they need,” saying she didn’t see why she shouldn’t be helping.
But despite the solidarity shown by many locals in the Texan city, El Paso appears to currently be struggling with the stream of migrants crossing the border into its streets.
“Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a steady increase in migrants being apprehended by Customs and Border Protection. The current surge is straining resources, overwhelming Border Patrol officers and shelters in El Paso, and our local entities are scrambling to meet the growing demand,” Senator César Blanco told Newsweek.
“With limited space at the shelters, dozens of migrants have been forced to face the winter weather and sleep on sidewalks and camp outside bus stations as they wait to get transportation to their destination.”
Democratic Representative Veronica Escobar wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that “the extraordinarily high numbers of migrants arriving in El Paso have created an unprecedented strain on our community and require significantly more federal resources as well as a broader, whole-of-government response.”
According to a dashboard maintained by the city of El Paso, over 5,100 migrants were held as of Sunday in the Border Patrol Central Processing Center in the Texan city, despite this being designed to temporarily hold up to 3,500 people only.
The dashboard also shows that U.S. immigration officials released 1,744 migrants in El Paso on Saturday and Sunday, 611 of which were left on the streets in Downtown El Paso, as there were no more available beds at shelters run by NGOs.
The migrants who arrived in El Paso on Sunday crossed the Rio Grande after nightfall on Sunday. According to reports, they arrived from a caravan of 20 buses that had been escorted by Chihuahua State Police from the city of Jiménez to Juárez earlier in the day.
Most of the migrants come from Nicaragua, Peru and Ecuador. A growing number of Nicaraguans have crossed the U.S. border in the past two years, driven by the desire to run away from the country’s struggling economy and the government of four-time President Daniel Ortega, a former guerrilla leader whose leadership has recently taken an authoritarian turn.
The U.S.’s strained relationship with Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime means that the country cannot quickly expel these migrants under Title 42, a public health authority measure that has been in place since the pandemic.
Under Title 42, migrants at U.S. land borders can be rapidly expelled as a necessary measure to protect Americans from a potential health threat, such as a COVID-19 outbreak. The measure was not applied to children traveling alone but involved adults traveling solo and families.
The measure was invoked by former President Donald Trump at the height of the pandemic and extended under Biden. But in November, a federal judge ordered the Biden administration to lift the restrictions “immediately,” saying the ban was “arbitrary and capricious.”
“With Title 42 set to end next week, we anticipate the number of migrants crossing the border will continue to rise, and we need to support our local border communities and NGOs on the front line of this humanitarian crisis with humanitarian assistance,” Blanco said.
For some—especially those on the political right—Sunday’s crossing is the direct result of a failure from the Biden administration to address migration and issues at the Texas border.
“The Biden administration has failed to address immigration in a meaningful way,” Jon Barela, CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, a non-partisan, private sector-led policy advocacy organization, told Newsweek.
“The president has no plan. Immigration is one of our nation’s greatest strategic advantages, yet Washington’s haphazard, byzantine, hodgepodge of outdated policies has decidedly failed to solve the migrant crisis and long-term migration issues. The federal government’s negligence isn’t compassionate and places an undue burden on local governments and taxpayers,” Barela said.
Others agree. Republican Texas Congressman Ronny Jackson accused Biden of creating “a DELIBERATE attack meant to WEAKEN America!!” by refusing to close the border. Republican Congresswoman Mayra Flores, the first female Mexican-born member of the House, accused Biden of “blowing apart” the “most secure border in U.S. history” that he had allegedly inherited from Trump.
Newsweek reached out to El Paso city authorities and the White House for comment.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection sent the following statement to Newsweek: “U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s El Paso Sector on the Texas border with Mexico has seen an increase in encounters. In order to process individuals as safely and expeditiously as possible, Border Patrol agents from Big Bend and CBP Officers from El Paso Field Office are assisting with processing.
“CBP releases noncitizens to service-providing nongovernmental organizations and other sites in border communities in coordination with state and local partners. CBP works diligently to ensure that releases are conducted in a safe manner and that all noncitizens released from custody are provided essential support upon release and may access transportation to continue to their destinations.
“All individuals released from CBP to continue their immigration process are screened for national security and public safety concerns. Those individuals who are found to pose a public safety risk continue to be detained. CBP and ICE make custody determinations on a case-by-case basis and have in place strict reporting requirements for any individual released from custody pending the continuation of their immigration process.”
Update, 12/15/2022 4:30 a.m. ET time: This article has been updated to include comments from the CBP and Senator César Blanco.
