SAN ANTONIO (AP) — About 7,100 migrants are being stopped crossing the border daily from Mexico, U.S. authorities said Tuesday, signaling they are preparing for even more increases as the Biden administration nears a decision on whether to end sweeping asylum restrictions designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said 1,500 Cubans were stopped over the previous day, well more than double the daily average from February. Homeland Security said U.S. authorities encountered migrants an average of 7,101 times a day during the week ended Monday, compared to a daily average of about 6,800 in February among people crossing illegally and showing up at official crossings.
The increases, if sustained, may surpass levels of migration reached last year, in 2019 and other peak periods.
“This is a bipartisan issue, you have to get both sides of the parties together,” Ortiz said at Border Security Expo, an industry conference in San Antonio.
Related Story: Border Patrol union president issues stark warning: ‘Floodgates could totally bust open’
Ending COVID restrictions on asylum “will likely cause a significant increase” in arrivals at the U.S. border with Mexico, Homeland Security wrote in a 16-page document outlining more staffing and other measures to deal with more people. The department said more arrivals also reflected long-term forces driving migration to the United States, such as earthquakes, natural disasters and economic decline that results in food and housing shortages.
“During the past few years, irregular migration along the Southwest Border has increased to unprecedented levels,” the department said. “In addition to the increased migration, (Homeland Security) is seeing a pronounced shift in the demographics and nationalities of noncitizens being encountered at the land border that impacts its processes.”
More illegal crossings here in Eagle Pass, TX. This is pretty constant and it’s happening in different areas of the river. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/5E366EmVOL
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) March 29, 2022
Homeland Security officials said they were planning for three scenarios: the current level of illegal border crossings, 12,000 and 18,000, an astounding number but one that they said was simply to be prepared and not a projection.
The department said it created a Southwest Border Coordinating Center to respond to any sharp increases, with MaryAnn Tierney, a regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as interim leader and a Border Patrol official as deputy.
The administration is particularly challenged by migrants from countries that have traditionally not sent such large numbers of people to the U.S., including Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Colombia.
Since March 2020, the U.S. has used a public health order aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19 to expel migrants more than 1.7 million times without a chance to seek asylum. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to decide this week whether to extend Title 42, named for a 1944 public health law.
Title 42 in action. Just watched as Border Patrol dropped off this group of single adult migrants at the bridge in Eagle Pass, TX as they were expelled back into Mexico.
Some of them will likely try to cross again at some point.
Trump & Biden have both used Title 42 @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/ZFxwOz6PMw— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) March 29, 2022
Some migrants from countries such as Cuba have continued to be released in the U.S. to pursue asylum because costs and diplomatic challenges prevent the U.S. from sending them home.
COVID-19 rates have been plunging among migrants crossing the border, raising more questions about the scientific grounds for Title 42. While there is no aggregate rate for migrants, test results from several major corridors for illegal border crossings suggest it is well below levels that have triggered concerns among U.S. officials.
Hearing from multiple federal sources that Title 42 is expected to be ended within a matter of days.
If so, it means Border Patrol would no longer be able to immediately expel migrants back to MX due to COVID.
Instead, all would have to be brought in for processing via Title 8.
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) March 29, 2022
In California, 54 of 2,877 migrants tested positive the first two weeks of March, according to the state Department of Social Services. That’s a rate of just 1.9%, down from a peak of 28.2% on Jan. 8.
In Pima County, Arizona, which includes Tucson, the seven-day positivity rate among migrants didn’t exceed 1.3% in early March. The positivity rate among 5,300 migrants tested last month at the Regional Center for Border Health near Yuma, Arizona, was 0.1%.
McAllen, Texas, the largest city in the busiest corridor for illegal crossings, has a higher rate among migrants — 11.3% for the week ending March 16 — but it has been consistently lower than the general population.
NEW: Two child sex predators arrested by Border Patrol in RGV & Tucson sectors.
Jose Luis Reyes, Honduran, previously convicted of sexual contact w/ 9 & 16 y/o child in Houston.
Rudy Soria-De La Cruz, Guatemalan, lewd acts w/ child under 14 by force in San Mateo, CA. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/f53ZFwSP9W— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) March 29, 2022
Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed.
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Just evoke the death penalty for any and all caught smuggling drugs over the border like Fentanyl, and half the so-called migrants would disappear. Joe has surrendered our border control to Drug Dealers and killers. Fentanyl has killed more young American people last year than traffic accidents. Thanks to Biden’s race treachery, this formerly United States will remain divided in perpetuity. I ‘m sure he got more than his usual 10% when he sold America out. He makes Will Smith’s weak slap in the face of a man much smaller in stature look like child’s play to what Biden has done to the once former clean law-abiding face of America. The age of the American rule by criminals is upon us, led by the criminal class of Democrat politicians hoping to seize power and control by any and all illegal means necessary., and looking more and more like a Frustrated outted Putin, whose true destructive intentions have been found out, about to get thrown out of the country they have invaded. We will all soon be acting like self-defending Ukrainians rebelling against the social aggression the enemies have used to make war upon us with, that already makes cities like Detroit, Chicago, and L.A. look like Putin socialist bombed out war zones populated by a people with no place to sleep but the streets and tent cities. Makes a sane American want to sleep with his gun beside him rather than more people who bear the image of our President’s son, who is the kind of citizen created by men like Biden who are borderline mad.
When you are desperate for votes, allow illegal invaders in and wait a millisecond to give them the right to vote for their hero who got them here and gave them so much free everything.
About 7,100 migrants are being stopped crossing the border daily from Mexico
Should be stopped and immediately turned around into Mexico. This INVASION of our country needs to STOP. It’s more important to stop the invasion here than the one taking place in the Ukraine.
Birthright citizenship needed to end 50 years ago, but we are still stuck with it because Congress is too stupid to correct it. Marxist Democrats will have instant SLAVE WORKERS for their new world order and from the current invasion.
ITS getting to the point, if i had the power, i’d errect a FULL ON DEATH FIELD across that entire border…… I no longer care, what they are ‘fleeing’ from. I DON’T WANT ANY OF THEM!