Biden under migrant pressure

Easing of rules sparks fear of asylum seekers flooding into border cities

WASHINGTON — US lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, have pressed President Joe Biden to take action to manage an expected wave of asylum seekers at the US' southern border when COVID-era restrictions end this week.

US border cities are bracing for an influx of asylum seekers after a US judge last month moved to strike down a policy enacted by the administration of former president Donald Trump in 2020 that had allowed migration authorities to rapidly send asylum seekers back to Mexico and other countries.

The policy, known as Title 42, is due to end on Wednesday, and thousands of asylum seekers have been lining up at the US-Mexico border before the restrictions are eased. The rule has been used to deter more than 2.5 million migrants from crossing since March 2020.

Along the US southern border, two cities — El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico — prepared on Sunday for a surge of as many as 5,000 new migrants a day.

On the Mexican side of the border, only heaps of discarded clothes, shoes and backpacks remained on Sunday morning on the banks of the Rio Grande River, where until a couple of days ago hundreds of people were lining up to turn themselves in to US officials.

On the US side, the Mayor of El Paso, Oscar Leeser, issued an emergency declaration on Saturday to access additional local and state resources for building shelters and other urgently needed aid.

El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego told The Associated Press on Sunday that the region, the location of one of the busiest border crossings in the country, was coordinating housing and relocation efforts with groups and other cities, as well as calling on the state and federal government for humanitarian help.

At a migrant shelter not far from the river in a poor Ciudad Juarez neighborhood, Carmen Aros, 31, said she knew little about US policies.

Constantly changing policies make it hard to plan, said Dylan Corbett, director of the Hope Border Institute, a Catholic organization helping migrants in both El Paso and Juarez. The group started the clinic two months ago.

Dire situation

"It's a very dire situation," US Representative Tony Gonzales of Texas, a Republican, told CBS television.

Gonzales called on Biden to revive past policies that tried to speed up asylum review and expedite deportations.

US Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, urged Biden to enact a policy requiring people to request asylum only at official border crossing points.

"And if they don't follow that pathway they need to go back," Cuellar said.

Republicans made calls for tighter immigration policies a key message in their 2022 midterm election campaigns.

After winning a narrow majority in the US House of Representatives last month, some Republican lawmakers are calling for the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for what they see as a failure of border policy under Biden.

One of the loudest Republican voices for tighter border policy, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, said on Sunday that the end of Title 42 would bring "total chaos".

While Gonzales said the US was poised to receive a "hurricane of migrants", the Biden administration has pushed back at arguments that ending Title 42 amounted to an opening of US borders to illegal immigrants.

"These aren't people who are attempting to illegally cross the border," Keisha Lance Bottoms, a White House aide, told CBS. "These are people who are presenting themselves, asking that they be processed in accordance with the laws of the United States."

Still, pressure appeared to be growing on the Biden administration, even within his own party. US Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat, told CBS that Biden should ask for an extension of Title 42.

"The president needs to find a way," Manchin said.

Xinhua