Title 42 was activated in 2020 by Donald Trump and allowed US authorities to essentially close official border entry points to most who just turned up, while swiftly expelling migrants who crossed illegally elsewhere. The policy has been continued by Joe Biden amid legal challenges and Republican anti-immigration invective, with the Democratic president criticized from the left for employing increasingly harsh rhetoric and strategies around the border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now emergency shelters and migrant advocates in El Paso fear more of the chaos that occasionally hits the city and overwhelmed services last Christmas when families in dire straits, frustrated at being shut out of US legal systems, waded across the Rio Grande that forms the US-Mexico border there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Texas\u2019s rightwing governor, Greg Abbott, plans to send in what he calls national guard special response teams and has been on Twitter in recent days posting about a fresh show of force and additional razor wire and barriers that engineers are adding to stop irregular crossings in the region. Abbott\u2019s office did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
El Paso\u2019s mayor, Oscar Leeser, announced a state of emergency that began on Monday and the city\u2019s office of emergency management has already requested $25m from the federal government to cope with a likely increase in people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to really take a lot of work from all of our teams to be prepared,\u201d Leeser said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Migrant advocates warned there are not enough hours in the day, paid staff or volunteers to meet the expected demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are all holding our breath,\u201d said the Rev Rafael Garcia of Sacred Heart church, a key place of refuge for migrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNobody seems to know what the flow is going to be like. We have a shelter but there\u2019s a lot of people in the area and that are out in the alley.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Migrants camp out in front of the Sacred Heart church in advance of the planned 11 May end of Title 42 regulations. Photograph: Paul Ratje\/Reuters<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shelter at Sacred Heart can take in just 120 people and is one of only a handful of such places in the city, especially after the local nonprofit Annunciation House closed its largest longstanding shelter last year because of a shortage of volunteers and expensive maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week the Sacred Heart shelter was already overflowing, with hundreds of migrants stuck outside and using Red Cross blankets as makeshift tents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When an estimated 20,000 migrants came to El Paso last December, streets surrounding the church were crowded with people forced to sleep outside during a bitter cold snap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With more migrants anticipated starting 11 May, Garcia said he is not sure what will happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you find out first, let me know,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city said it will temporarily house migrants at two disused middle schools and the civic center, and it also hopes to offer transport to Houston and other cities for onward flights \u2013 but differently than Abbott\u2019s unilateral busing of migrants to far away, Democratic-run cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAlmost 99% of all the migrants that come through choose to not remain in El Paso,\u201d Jorge Rodriguez, coordinator of the office of emergency management, said, adding: \u201cSo we help facilitate that as best we can through the NGO network, the county\u2019s processing center and [other] strategies \u2026 Transportation is key.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Title 42 is lifted, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will rely on existing Title 8 law, under which any individual who is deemed ineligible to be in the US faces a five-year ban on readmission \u2013 and criminal charges if found crossing illegally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laredo and Brownsville, farther east on the Texas-Mexico border, have also declared emergencies ahead of the lifting of Title 42 rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, announced plans to accelerate the processing of individuals asking to stay on humanitarian grounds and swift removal for those refused entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Briefed by officials, immigration attorneys representing migrants in expedited asylum hearings were told they\u2019ll only be allowed to speak to clients by phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe only way people are going to be let in is if they claim fear of return [to their home country] and then they have to pass their credible fear interview,\u201d Imelda Maynard, legal director for the Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services in El Paso, said. \u201cHow do we get documents to our clients to sign correctly? How do we get the documents back? Like, who\u2019s going to do all that scanning on their end?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maynard added that the Department of Homeland Security said credible fear interviews would be held seven days a week and all 35,000 migrants waiting in Ju\u00e1rez are going to be processed in about a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019re saying they\u2019re going to give these folks interviews within 72 hours of entering the US and if they want counsel, then we have 48 hours to prep our client. We just can\u2019t work with that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jennifer Babaie, director of advocacy and legal services for Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, said that speed is a major concern and she worried the government would focus extra resources on detaining people, not on working with organizations to support a fair process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe communities along the border are ready to receive and welcome people,\u201d she said. \u201cAll we need is a willingness to coordinate among local, state and federal governments and for them to communicate with us in order for us to really help these people seek protection in a humane way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Texas border city of El Paso has declared a state of emergency ahead of the Biden administration\u2019s ending of Title 42 pandemic-related rules next week that, since 2020, have barred many migrants from crossing into the US to exercise their right to request asylum. City leaders are preparing for a potential influx of more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4342,13369,8669,7753,8348,5178,9204,10021,6369,9194,5110,6537,9331,7711,5222,7747,12950,11337,913,4066,9980,12310,6738,8057,11638,2264,10453,12634,10483,6094,12773,11493,2471,10342,5331,3797,1510,6461,7343,65,11973,5399,5485,7039,11082,3805,2278,5278,5656,6134,6944,12337,8810,5655,912,7199,11533,5355,9981,10220,5350,12605,6348,11565,3954,10415,594],"class_list":["post-32556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-afghanistan","tag-americas","tag-asylum","tag-asylum-seekers","tag-ban","tag-biden","tag-border","tag-brownsville","tag-chaos","tag-charges","tag-christmas","tag-church","tag-city","tag-cold","tag-covid","tag-crises","tag-customs","tag-demand","tag-democratic","tag-el","tag-el-paso","tag-exercise","tag-families","tag-fear","tag-forced","tag-government","tag-guard","tag-health","tag-houston","tag-immigration","tag-increase","tag-interview","tag-joe-biden","tag-law","tag-mayor","tag-mexican","tag-mexico","tag-migrant","tag-migrants","tag-migration","tag-one","tag-oscar","tag-pandemic","tag-phone","tag-port","tag-president","tag-public-health","tag-quality","tag-red-cross","tag-refugee","tag-republican","tag-rio","tag-schools","tag-security","tag-snap","tag-src","tag-state-of-emergency","tag-texas","tag-title-42","tag-transportation","tag-twitter","tag-uk","tag-us","tag-us-mexico-border","tag-will","tag-work","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Migrants](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/c7412f0ee21dafd065fd067cdde82baea7853a20\/0_0_4500_3000\/master\/4500.jpg?width=445&quality=85&dpr=1&s=none\")
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