More than 2,600 migrant crossings were recorded in a 24-hour time span from Friday to Saturday in the El Paso sector in Texas, where hundreds of migrants were spotted Sunday night crossing illegally the US-Mexico border.
The migrants were waiting in a massive line for the Border Patrol to take them into custody with more migrants reportedly being on the way.
Prior to these border crossings, nearly 20 buses with 852 migrants were escorted by the Chihuahua state police from the city of Jimenez to Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city located across from El Paso, where the law enforcement officers released them to various non-governmental organizations.
Since the number of migrants was almost triple the number of beds available at the shelters run by non-governmental organizations, US immigration officials released 325 migrants on the streets in Downtown El Paso.
After they were dropped off at the NGOs – the Leona Vicario and Kiki Romero shelters – in Ciudad Juarez, the massive group of migrants from Nicaragua, Peru, and Ecuador then walked to the border and crossed illegally into El Paso.
On Sunday night, more than 1,500 migrants waded across the Rio Grande from shelters in Juarez into El Paso, where NGO shelters are stressed beyond capacity, in one of the largest mass crossings ever in the region.
The US immigration officials declined to comment Sunday night.
According to a dashboard maintained by the city of El Paso, Texas, the Border Patrol Central Processing Center designed to temporarily hold 3,500 people hosted almost 5,000 migrants over the weekend, showing the degree to which Border Patrol facilities are stretched.
Following the federal court’s decision that Title 42 policy must end by Dec. 21, a ruling that the Biden administration is appealing, the federal and local officials are expecting and are bracing for continued growth in illegal migrant crossings.
The Trump administration initiated the controversial policy, but the Biden administration not only continued with it but has also expanded it to quickly expel many migrants on public health grounds.
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