Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, joined several of his colleagues on the left, who are sounding the alarm over the Biden administration's handling of the southern border, warning on Wednesday that the crisis will go from bad to worse with the coming end of the Trump-era Title 42 policy.
Cuellar, D-Texas, told Fox News that in the past two days, 10,000 people crossed the border illegally into the United States ahead of Thursday's Title 42 expiration, according to Border Patrol data. With the number of illegal crossings expected to multiply in the coming weeks, Cuellar said Border Patrol has been instructed to release migrants onto city streets if NGOS and border communities don't have the capacity to hold them.
"When you get 10,000 people a day, a couple of things are going to happen. Border Patrol right now, they are at over 124% average over capacity, almost every border sector except for west Texas is over capacity and if the NGOS and the border communities cannot take care of those folks… they are going to start doing street releases and again, I’ve been told they have been instructed to go to street releases if they have to," Cuellar said on "America Reports."
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Migrants will be mass released at bus stops, gas stations, supermarkets and in towns and cities across the border as Customs and Border Protection facilities are already over capacity in multiple sectors, CBP sources who were not authorized to speak publicly told Fox News.
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The Department of Homeland Security is anticipating up to 14,000 migrant encounters daily after the expiration of Tite 42. Cuellar said his sources estimate 150,000 migrants from Mexico border states are already planning to illegally cross into the U.S. once Title 42 is lifted, adding that the "powerful image" of migrants entering the U.S. without consequences will serve as a "magnet" for more people considering illegally migrating to the U.S.
"If you include the ones entering the pipelines, the ones in Central America, you’ve got hundreds of thousands of people that are heading to our border and if we don’t put any consequences, which means deport people, then this number is going to keep increasing," he warned.
"Border patrol is going to get overwhelmed," he added.
Cuellar has represented Texas' 28th congressional district since 2005, which includes the cities of Laredo, Rio Grande City, and San Antonio, all at the center of the border crisis and have been directly impacted by the migrant surge.
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"This powerful image of people just coming in and not going back and being returned is just going to become a bigger magnet for more people coming in," he said. "It's not good."
Title 42 has been used since 2020 by both the Trump and Biden administration to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants quickly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, nearly half of all migrant encounters ended in a Title 42 expulsion. Last month, the Biden administration confirmed it will terminate the policy at the end of May despite objections from both Democrats and Republicans warning that it would trigger a massive migrant wave.
Cuellar said that rather than having asylum officers or military personnel dealing with the administrative or transportation functions amid the expected surge, the Department of Homeland Security should arrange for groups of immigration judges to adjudicate the cases and deport migrants in border towns and cities as they come in.
"The way I look at it, you can have the asylum officers, they say if they go or go back, and if they want to appeal that, they can have an immigration judge. We have to get the immigration judges, with all due respect, out of their comfort of their zones, and they have to hear the cases…because they have seven days to hear the cases and the decisions are not appealable. So the immigration judges can play a big important role here," he told Fox News host John Roberts.
"But you have to have the asylum officers have the judges hear those cases within seven days like they are supposed to, and then send them back… because most people are not going to be granted asylum, 100 people ask for asylum, 88 to 90% are rejected. So, why are we letting 100% of the people when they are not supposed to be coming in the first place" he added.
Cuellar's warnings come after Texas Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales revealed he learned from the president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, that more than 80,000 migrants, primarily from Venezuela, are moving toward the border.
President Giammattei also reportedly said he tried to call the White House on the matter, but nobody would take his calls.
