White House gives migrants FINAL warning before Title 42 expires

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday issued another stern warning to migrants considering the perilous journey to the US led by “ruthless smugglers” following the end of Title 42 – saying they will face “steeper” consequences after the clock has struck midnight.

Authorities at the border deal with migrants daily, more than 10,000 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

At the White House on Thursday, Mayorkas again tried to persuade migrants to cross illegally, even as they touted new procedures designed to ease the path to legal migration.

“If anyone arrives at our southern border after midnight tonight, they will be deemed ineligible for asylum and there will be more severe consequences for illegal entry, including a minimum five-year re-entry ban and possible criminal charges,” said Mayorkas, who is being called upon to get resigned or even impeached by congressional Republicans amid chaos at the border.

He cited the government’s efforts to send 24,000 Border Police officers and the thousands of troops and asylum seekers to the border – even though he was repeatedly asked why more of the government’s policies had not already been put in place, given the two years it took to prepare. the end of Trump-era immigration authority.

“We initially expected large numbers of encounters,” he said. We are already seeing high numbers of encounters in certain sectors. This puts an incredible strain on the staff, our facilities and our communities with whom we work closely. We have been preparing for this moment for almost two years and our plan will pay off.”

He praised a new feature, a new app called CBP One that allows more than 700 people to book appointments at border crossings every day — despite press reports that users have experienced disruptions and had great difficulty getting an appointment.

Speaking to reporters for an hour, he was asked about President Biden’s own comment this week that the situation at the border would be “chaotic for a while” — and why the administration could not have prepared more.

Migrants gathered at border crossings awaiting the end of Title 42 authority

A wave of cross the Rio Grande in Matamoros on the last day before title 42 power expires

Soldiers observe migrants after they cross the Rio Grande to try to enter the United States, in Matamoros, Mexico

“Well, I’ve been saying for months and months that the challenge at the border is and will be very difficult and we’ve talked repeatedly about the fact that the difficulty is actually going to get worse in this time of transition,” he replied.

But he blamed much of the blame on a “fundamentally broken immigration system” after Congress repeatedly failed to pass a comprehensive overhaul since the 1990s.

Mayorkas is counting on new policies that provide a legal path and hopes they will ease the burden on the system. He repeatedly cited the results of a new program to provide “parole” and two-year work permits to migrants from certain countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba and Nicaragua. The program has led to sharp declines at other points of entry, but they are only a fraction of the migrants trying to enter the country.

On Thursday, migrants again tried to cross the Rio Grande or lined up at entry points to try to claim asylum.

Border agents have stopped 10,000 migrants every day this week – a threshold they again passed for a third consecutive day on Wednesday.

That included about 1,000 arrivals a day in Yuma, Arizona, on Tuesday, with migrants gathering in Ciudad Juárez hoping to cross border checkpoints when Title 42 expires, and lingering confusion over whether the Biden administration’s newly announced policies will will succeed in speeding up the deportations of people who submit asylum applications that will not last.

Customs and Border Protection currently has about 26,000 migrants in custody amid a rush to process the arrivals, several thousand over capacity.