El Paso will continue sending migrants to other American cities

UP TO 12 THOUSAND MIGRANTS ARE WAITING IN CIUDAD JUÁREZ TO ENTER THE US.

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As revealed by Óscar Leeser, mayor of El Paso, Texas, up to 12,000 migrants are currently in Ciudad Juárez waiting to reach the city he runs, after Title 42 ceases to apply. The mayor’s figure resulted from El Paso officials tour of the streets of Ciudad Juárez. According to Leeser, the number does not include some 3,500 foreigners who are presumed to be going in a caravan to the Mexican city.

The mayor emphasized that the city has been taking steps to deal with the increased number of migrants expected to arrive in the city after May 11. “The city is preparing to assist not only asylum seekers but also the El Paso community.” Among the measures, it is evaluated to restore the sending of migrants in buses to different cities.

El Paso receives federal funds

The mayor and his officials do not have an exact date of when the measure would begin to be implemented again. “We are going to help them (get) where they want to go because they are not coming to El Paso, they are coming to the United States and we have to help them connect with their families and their friends,” he said. He added that El Paso is not going to send anyone to the White House or Vice President Kamala Harris’s house like Greg Abbott did.

“We are going to treat everyone with respect and dignity,” he maintained. For his part, the deputy administrative director of El Paso, Mario D’Agostino, said that the city has received federal funds that were extended until the end of fiscal year 2023. “We are trying to manage this money in the most efficient way possible so that it can last as long as possible as we are expecting big numbers,” D’Agostino said.

“We know that we don’t have the capacity to house that many people in El Paso. So our strategy is to support them to reach the next destination”, he added. Leeser added that buses were chosen since the El Paso airport is medium-sized and has a limited number of flights per day. He recalled that the Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) has released up to 1,500 aliens in one day in El Paso in the past.

Migrants sleeping in the streets

Some schools will be adapted to receive migrants and process them, but will not function as shelters, officials explained. The mayor admitted that the El Paso Police Department has been carrying out surveillance actions in the city, where there are currently a good number of migrants sleeping on the streets. However, he asserted that local agents are not assuming the role of immigration authorities.

Among the migrants who have arrived in El Paso these days, there are many who had already been returned to Mexican soil under Title 42. Such is the case of Venezuelan Luis Gutiérrez, who returned to the US irregularly through a 12-by-12-inch “hole” in the border barrier that he passed through after waiting two nights for Border Patrol to leave.

“It was very hard because ‘la migra’ did not leave where the hole is,” Gutiérrez told on a street in the Texan city where he sleeps with his brother and some friends. “Mexico for us was a difficult journey. We spent two and a half months walking, hitchhiking, asking people for help,” he recalled.