It shouldn’t take much to convince anyone outside of the Biden administration that there’s a crisis at our southern border, and it shows little sign of getting better. Add to this crisis that’s already out of control the fact that Title 42, the provision that allowed the federal government to detain more illegals over pandemic protocols, expires on May 11.
Conditions at the border are likely to get worse before they get better. As a result, one border city is preparing for the post-Title 42 onslaught by declaring a state of emergency. Oscar Leeser, mayor of El Paso, Texas, is expected to announce details about the state of emergency on Monday.
The New York Post reports that the mayor “warned that his border city could buckle under the pressure of thousands of migrants seeking aid, with more expected to come as the US ends the federal pandemic-era policy which has allowed officials to kick millions of people back to Mexico.”
The state of emergency will probably be in effect for 30 days, and Leeser will likely call on the federal government to build more shelters for illegal immigrants and to provide additional security to handle the influx of migrants. To date, the U.S. has given El Paso $22.5 million in funding.
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This state of emergency is the second one that El Paso has declared in the past six months. Over 1,000 people are crossing the border at El Paso on a daily basis, and that number may rise as high as 10,000-12,000 a day once Title 42 officially ends.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection said that as of Saturday, more than 20,500 migrants were in custody along the southern border, with nearly 7,000 caught in the Rio Grande Valley sector alone,” reports the Post. “There have been about 7,000 daily encounters in late April, with CBP officials warning that the number will rise in the coming weeks.”
“The reason we’re declaring a state of emergency is to make sure we can stand up and prepare for May 11,” Leeser said at a press on conference Sunday. “To make sure we have public shelters, public housing… and two schools in place.”
Leeser, a Democrat, has stirred up controversy for busing illegals to New York City in the past, and he has bucked his party on the border crisis on numerous occasions. He also stated on Sunday that the housing that El Paso has built is temporary, and the city has no intention of permanently housing illegal immigrants. He has also called for a change in the nation’s border policy.
“There’s no endgame to this, and we can’t continue as a city or as a country without the federal government changing federal laws,” Leeser told the media. “The process right now is broken and it has not been fixed for many, many years.”
The Biden administration hasn’t taken the border crisis seriously at all. For starters, the administration put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the border, and everybody knows you don’t put her in charge of anything you take seriously.
It’s also worth noting that the president made what Republicans called a “prop visit” to El Paso shortly after the first of the year, but the visit was little more than a perfunctory photo op. The White House has quietly enacted some Trump-era border policies, but even those actions may be too little too late.
CNN reports that Brownsville, another Texas border town, recently issued its own state of emergency.
“On April 27, as mayor pro tem I signed a disaster declaration. These migrants who are making their way through Brownsville, they are not here to stay,” Commissioner Nurith Galonsky Pizana told the media. “They have a final destination outside of Brownsville and we will manage this with due process as these individuals seek asylum and eventually move on to their final destination.”
If what’s going on at the border hasn’t gotten the White House’s attention and prompted more action, what will it take?
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