Over 80,000 Immigrants Released Into El Paso With Border Facilities at Max Capacity; Border Surge Spills Over to Yuma, Arizona

Over 80,000 immigrants released into El Paso with border facilities at max capacity:

The city of El Paso has been inundated with more than 80,000 noncitizens who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and were released from federal custody and into its community in nearly four months.

According to all the data that are publicly available from the city, the 678,000 residents of El Paso have seen 84,082 immigrants released into their town between Aug. 22 and Dec. 11. Immigrants were permitted to remain in the United States pending court hearings years down the road. Federal law enforcement agencies Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement made the releases.

Between Dec. 5-11, exactly 6,950 people were released. Since Monday, federal officials have let 5,732 people into the U.S. by way of El Paso.

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, a Democrat, told reporters at a press conference Thursday that the city’s assistance for released immigrants and the federal government’s funding of $8 million to reimburse nonprofit groups and the city was “a band-aid to a bigger problem.” Leeser continued to refuse to declare an emergency.

The number of releases has surged recently because more immigrants have come over the border. Limited detention space means federal officials must release people, sometimes directly on the street in an unfamiliar city or town, at a faster rate to make room for more people being arrested.

The number of illegal immigrants taken into custody in El Paso was higher Wednesday than the average over the past record-setting seven days, a sign the situation is continuing to grow direr. —>READ MORE HERE

WSJ: Border Surge Spills Over to Yuma, Ariz:

Scene mirrors what is happening in El Paso, Texas, as pandemic-era policy is set to expire

More migrants seeking asylum are showing up in Yuma, Ariz., with the county declaring a state of emergency as the expiration of a Covid-19-era policy will likely lead to a larger surge. 

Several hundred migrants who had crossed the border illegally into Yuma, were standing in a line near the border fence, many huddled around small fires, according to video of the scene posted on Friday morning on Twitter by a reporter from KYMA television station in the border city.

In recent days, Border Patrol agents in Yuma have made an average of roughly 1,000 arrests a day, up from about 700 to 900 arrests a day in the past few weeks, according to federal authorities.

The scene in the small city mirrored images from the U.S. side of the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, where in recent days thousands of migrants a day have crossed the border there, straining local resources and charities.

The volume of those crossing the border illegally has been on the rise in recent weeks and is expected to jump again with the looming end of a pandemic-era public health policy that has allowed border authorities to quickly expel many migrants before they could ask for asylum.

Yuma County Chairman Tony Reyes signed an emergency declaration Wednesday. The order cited a “triple threat” of Covid-19, RSV and the flu along with a rising number of asylum seekers crossing the border. The city of Yuma has had a state of emergency in place since last December.

“The number of asylum seekers and migrants is expected to increase by 40% or more once Title 42 expires; and the projected increase of asylum seekers and migrants has and will continue to strain the ability of medical staff and local hospital resources to provide essential and necessary medical care to Yuma residents as well as the migrant community,” the proclamation said. —>READ MORE HERE

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