Here They Come!

The long-feared, long-expected surge of illegal aliens crossing the U.S. border with the repeal of Title 42 immigration restrictions has already begun even though the deadline for lifting the restrictions is still 8 days away.

El Paso, Texas, is a disaster zone. More than 5,000 illegal aliens from Central and South America have flooded the immigration processing centers just this past weekend.

“The numbers are like nothing I’ve seen for the last 25 years,” Blake Barrow, the director of the Rescue Mission of El Paso, told the New York Times. “Honestly, I don’t know how to address this problem. The situation is overwhelming us.”

But remember, our border is secure. See?

El Paso overwhelmed as major surge of migrants crosses into U.S. @MattRiversABC reports. pic.twitter.com/5485JuVpKZ

— Good Morning America (@GMA) December 13, 2022

Hundreds of migrants have arrived at the Southern border, after wading across the Rio Grande to reach El Paso, Texas. The new surge comes ahead of the expected expiration of Title 42, which allows the U.S. to expel asylum-seekers during the pandemic.@MattRiversABC has more. pic.twitter.com/gGzsVGj6D7

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) December 13, 2022

And so the scenes unfolding in El Paso offered a preview of the challenges that border officials could soon face all along the southern border after the policy comes to an end, as it is expected to, absent court intervention, next week.

Most of those who arrived on Sunday turned themselves in to federal authorities for processing. Soon, most of them would join the thousands of others who have crossed in recent days, many of whom have been released to seek help and food, some clustering at the downtown bus station, some sleeping on cardboard during a night when temperatures dipped toward freezing.

So this is Homeland Security’s “plan”? Release people in the middle of an American city — impoverished, hungry, with no shelter and no food?

“What we do is we prepare and we plan, and we’ve been doing so for months understanding that the Title 42 authority that the CDC holds is not going to be around forever because, quite frankly, we want to conquer the pandemic and put it behind us,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on CNN’s State of the Union in May of 2022. Mayorkas was commenting on the probability that up to 18,000 illegal aliens a day would show up at the U.S. border once Title 42 was lifted.

“Honestly, I don’t know how to address this problem,” Blake Barrow told the Times. “The situation is overwhelming us.” And the same is true all across Texas, as the entire state is under siege.

NRO:

Rosalio Sosa, who runs a network of shelters in the area, told the outlet that her facilities are struggling to keep up with the constant inflow of migrants. “The queue right now is endless,” he said.

An anonymous administration official implied the federal government is still attempting to tackle the “root” causes of illegal immigration in economically ravaged and politically tumultuous countries in Central America that are sparking the migrant upheaval. The Biden administration has not come up with a plan to fix the border catastrophe, he said.

The Texas Tribune reports that the Mexican state of Chihuahua sent 20 buses to the border

MEXICO BUSSING PEOPLE TO THE BORDER: El Paso, TX continues to face an 'unsustainable' migrant surge. TX Lt. Gov @DanPatrick: "They are dropping them off at our border… this administration has turned their back on America…" @BillHemmer @DanaPerino pic.twitter.com/KKcegHlXQp

— America's Newsroom (@AmericaNewsroom) December 13, 2022

“Welcome to the United States!” a young man in the middle of the Rio Grande shouted to the hundreds of migrants arriving at the border from shelters in Juárez on Sunday night. “You made it!”

The migrants who crossed Sunday night were in a group of hundreds who were escorted by Chihuahua State Police from the city of Jiménez to Juárez earlier in the day in a caravan of 20 buses. The buses split up in Juárez and brought migrants to the Leona Vicario and Kiki Romero shelters.

Some Democrats may try to blame Donald Trump and the Republicans for the fiasco at the border, but only rabid partisans will believe that. This crisis is full-blown, homegrown, made by Democrats, and ineptly managed by Joe Biden.

And in the immortal words of Ronald Reagan (who apparently stole them from W.C. Fields), “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.”