Migrants line up at border — seven days before Title 42 expires: Hundreds begin to wait for rules to expire as Republicans urge Biden to keep checks in place
- Migrants wait to cross before Covid emergency laws are scrapped next week
- An ex-Trump official warned that the US is on the brink of “an invasion.”
- Republicans have vowed to pass tougher laws to stop migrant crossings
Migrants lined up at the US-Mexico border on Thursday as hundreds of would-be asylum seekers wait for their chance to sneak into the country illegally.
Immigrants camp out near the California border town of San Ysidro before a Trump-era Covid decree that makes it easier to boot illegal immigrants expires May 11.
The Biden administration will send an additional 1,500 troops to the southern border to join the 2,500 already fighting to stem the flood of people crossing the border.
Potential asylum seekers wait on the Mexican side of the border near San Ysidro, California, hoping to cross once Title 42 expires on
Biden has vowed to use processing centers in countries such as Colombia and Guatemala to reduce the number of illegal crossings
But so far the president has ignored Republican pleas to expand emergency powers that allow authorities to deport migrants without hearing their asylum case.
Ken Cuccinelli, who served as deputy secretary of Homeland Security in the Trump administration, told Fox News that the US will face a wave of asylum applications he called “an invasion.”
“Much of the southern hemisphere is lined up at the border,” he said. “They’re going to storm into the country.”
“This administration doesn’t care,” the former attorney added.
On Thursday, a deal was signed with Mexico that will allow the country to take back Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who have been expelled from the US border from next week.
“This is a hemispheric challenge that requires hemispheric solutions,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“By working with our neighbors in the region, we can and will reduce the number of migrants reaching our southern border,” he added.
But the Republican-led House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, plans to pass stricter immigration laws
Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina, said the end of Title 42 “sets the table” for Congress to draft new legislation amid predictions of a wave of arrivals.
Official records show that more than 2.3 million migrants attempted to illegally enter the United States last year
Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, said the upper house of Congress could work on new laws to make it more difficult to enter the US.
More than 2.3 million migrants tried to illegally enter the United States across the Mexican border last year, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
That’s more than 1.7 million people in 2021 and just over 450,000 the year before, when much of the world went into lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic.
Emergency powers to remove migrants, known as Title 42, stem from a 79-year-old federal law that Trump used from the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Republicans are also angry that Joe Biden scrapped his predecessor’s key anti-immigration policy: a $16.6 billion border barrier along the border with Mexico.
Some border towns, including El Paso in Texas, have already declared a state of emergency.
The administration says it will use various legal tools to try and reduce the number of people trying to cross.
Those powers, known as Title 8, will result in undocumented migrants detained in the United States being punished in such a way that they are no longer eligible to legally enter the country.