With the imminent end of Title 42 on May 11, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser announced Monday that he will issue a full migrant state of emergency in the coming days, just as he did in December.
“I’ve been talking to (city attorney Karla) Neiman and chief (Mario) D’Agostino to do it at the right time but before May 11: declare a state of emergency. The main reason is that we want to make sure we have the schools up and ready to go, the Civic Center ready to go,” Leeser said at the Cabildo. “This will be strictly for temporary housing.”
El Paso city officials are preparing for unprecedented numbers of migrants to be paroled into the region once the Trump-era Title 42 public health order expires.
The federal rule, which has been in effect since March 2020, has allowed border agents to immediately remove ineligible immigrants trying to enter the country on public health grounds.
Questioned by the mayor, city officials said Monday that asylum seekers will not be sent back to Mexico after May 11. “Whatever they are doing now is going to end. We anticipate a large number of people coming as a result of those (public health) orders,” Neiman said.
Leeser said an official in Mexico reported last week that as many as 35,000 asylum seekers were staying across the border in Juárez, awaiting the end of Title 42.
After the fire at the facilities of the National Institute of Migration (INM) in Juárez four weeks ago, which left 40 dead, migrant families have settled in one hundred tents outside the place where the tragedy occurred, next to the Municipal Presidency and a few meters from the dividing line with the United States.
“We are going to see, based on all the information that we have received, something that we have not seen in El Paso, either in 2019 or in December (of last year). It’s really going to take a lot of work from our teams to get ready and I know we’ve been working on it and we’ll be ready,” the mayor said.
The coordinator of the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), Lt. Jorge Rodríguez, said that the City is working on an eight-point plan to deal with the post-May 11 immigration crisis. Includes daily briefings from other government agencies and community stakeholders to ensure coordination. It also focuses on temporary emergency shelters and, above all, moving released migrants out of El Paso to their preferred destinations as soon as possible.
“Part of our emergency shelter will be two schools (Bassett and Morehead high schools),” Rodriguez said. “And the transportation piece. We are working with the County to see how we can increase our transportation and the limited number of flights.”
According to the OEM head, the plan includes sending people to Houston in charter trucks. Once they arrive there, they will fly from that city’s airport to their final destinations in the United States.
“With the numbers that we have, 35,000 people waiting in Juárez now, we have to be aware that we have to give them temporary accommodation. Our operation will focus on schools; one of them is already ready, the other has to wait,” Rodríguez said.
He pointed out that as a last resort, the Convention Center would be used, where beds would be installed to receive foreigners. He added that there are also extra tents at the Border Patrol processing center in Northeast County.
“We have identified other locations, such as hotels, because it gives them privacy and is easy for single mothers and their children to manage,” said Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino.
He added that according to local government calculations, some 1,200 migrants are expected to cross through El Paso every day, for which the City is preparing to coordinate with the County and federal authorities in order to avoid situations like those that occurred in December, when hundreds of migrants were left to fend for themselves in the Center by the Border Patrol.
“We need 40.2 million dollars to complete the year. We have received $14.2 million that is in our coffers and we require an additional $26 million,” said D’Agostino.
He pointed out that the preparations before the end of Title 42 include three strategies: having emergency shelters, supplementary transportation and the ability to maintain the welcome center when needed.
El Paso since last year has spent $11.83 million on migrant services. The federal government has reimbursed the City for most of that, has sent advance funds, and is considering requests for more advances.
One more month
For now, the El Paso City Council on Monday extended for another 30 days an emergency ordinance that allows city employees to help nonprofit organizations that care for migrants released from federal custody.
Unlike the state of emergency, the ordinance does not contemplate giving migrants a roof and a bed, but simply supporting them on their way through the city.
In December, due to the low temperatures, Mayor Leeser declared a state of emergency, in order to protect foreigners –many of them abandoned in the streets– from the cold. The state of emergency was lifted after President Biden imposed restrictions on the stay in the US of Venezuelans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, thereby reducing the number of encounters with migrants in El Paso.
And just like city employees help out at nonprofit shelters when they don’t have volunteers, the idea is that nonprofits can help out at empty middle schools once they’re operational.
