El Paso to issue new state of emergency as border facilities hit capacity

El Paso, Texas will declare a new state of emergency on Monday as border facilities have reached capacity due to migrants flooding in from Mexico before Title 42 expires on May 11.

Mayor Oscar Leeser 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.

Leeser said the declaration, which would likely last 30 days, will call on additional US government aid to provide shelters for the asylum seekers, as well as security for the whole community.

The city has already received $22.5 million from the feds.

“The reason we’re declaring a state of emergency is to make sure we can stand up and prepare for May 11,” Leeser said during a news conference Sunday. “To make sure we have public shelters, public housing… and two schools in place.”

This will be the second time in six months that an emergency has been declared in the beleaguered city, with recent local data showing more than 1,000 people a day are arriving at the border.

Officials predict 10,000 to 12,000 migrants will try to seek asylum at the border on May 11, with the volume expected to rise, Leeser said.

Leeser, who has long bemoaned the crisis at the US-Mexico border, added that El Paso would not be providing permanent homes to the migrants, and that the shelters would be temporary as the city helps asylum seekers reach their intended destination.

El Paso has made headlines over its busing program — with thousands of migrants sent to the north, including New York City, over the past year — much to the headache of Mayor Eric Adams, who condemned the program.

US 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.

There have been about 7,000 daily encounters in late April, with CBP officials warning that the number will rise in the coming weeks.

Along with the need for aid, Leeser called on the government to make serious changes to America’s immigration and border laws to curb the flood of migrants coming though the southern border.

“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 said. “The process right now is broken and it has not been fixed for many, many years.”     

El Paso’s declaration comes as the border town of Brownsville, Texas, issued its own emergency, with Border Patrol Chief for the Rio Grande Valley Sector Gloria Chavez saying the city has seen over 15,000 Venezuelans arriving in the last eight days, CNN reports.

Like Leeser, Brownsville commissioner for District 1 Nurith Galonsky Pizana said the city will do its best to help the migrants transition through the town to reach their intended destination.

“These migrants who are making their way through Brownsville, they are not here to stay,” Galonsky Pizana said earlier this week. “They have a final destination outside of Brownsville, and we will manage this with due process as these individuals seek asylum.”

Although it seems counterintuitive for the migrants to try and cross the border illegally or seek asylum while Title 42 is still in place, it likely comes from a fear that it’ll be harder to get into the US once the policy expires.

With Title 42 gone, the US will revert to its decades-old protocols that were set up during mass migration in the US, including legal ramifications for people who repeatedly try to cross illegally.