El Paso Beefs Up Border Security With Arrival of 500 National Guard Troops as Future of Title 42 Remains Murky; 20K Migrants Waiting in Mexico to Cross US Border When Title 42 Ends, El Paso Mayor Says, and related stories

James Keivom

El Paso beefs up border security with arrival of 500 National Guard troops as future of Title 42 remains murky:

El Paso beefed up its border security Tuesday with the arrival of 500 Texas National Guard troops, as the future of Title 42 remains unclear and the city prepares for an even greater influx of migrants.

The troops, flanked by sand-colored armored Humvees and wielding automatic weapons, proved a formidable presence on the US side of the border with Mexico.

The armed guardsmen quickly went to work on their first day of deployment, strengthening border crossing deterrents along the Rio Grande with barbed wire coils — much to the ire of migrants on the other side of the river, who are hoping to cross into the US.

“Put those weapons away,” Reynaldo Jose Casu Calle, 34, yelled from the Mexico side at the soldiers.

Standing amid piles of rubbish near the bridge that connects the two countries, he shouted across the expanse of water: “We are all just human beings. Let us cross the border.”

Casu Calle, a mechanic from Venezuela, told The Post he has been stuck on the Mexican side of the border for two weeks and has been living on the streets of Ciudad Juárez.

“There are too many people in the shelter,” he said. Casu Calle left his wife and three children, ages 6, 7 and 9, back in Venezuela, where he said “there is no future for any of us.

“There is no gas, no water, no freedom,” he said. He hopes to eventually go to Canada, but doesn’t know how he’ll get there. --->READ MORE HERE

James Keivom

20K migrants waiting in Mexico to cross US border when Title 42 ends, El Paso mayor says:

Across the border from El Paso, Texas, some 20,000 migrants are waiting for Title 42 to end so they can cross into the US, the mayor said at a press conference Monday evening.

“We’ve been talking to some of the partners in Mexico, and we’re talking also to the Border Patrol and those are the numbers that have been fed back to us,” said Mayor Oscar Leeser. “The shelters in [Ciudad] Juarez are completely full today, and they believe there’s about 20,000 people ready to come into El Paso.”

An emergency filing with the Supreme Court by attorney generals in 19 states meant a temporary halt to the planned lifting of Title 42, the Trump-era policy which allows border officers to reject illegal border crossers from the US, on Wednesday.

The Border Patrol has used Title 42 to expel about 40% of all illegal border crossers since it was implemented by former President Donald Trump in 2020. Even though it may not end this week, local leaders say they are continuing to prepare for a human tidal wave — with as many as 5,000 migrants a day attempting to cross the border.

El Paso is currently the epicenter of the border crisis, with more immigrants crossing there than anywhere else in the country, according to the US Border Patrol statistics. Since August, city resources have been strained as the number of migrants arriving in the city continued to rise. --->READ MORE HERE

Follow links below to related stories:

National Guard commander ‘concerned’ for migrants, vows to secure El Paso border as Title 42’s end looms

WATCH: Texas National Guardsmen String Razor Wire Along El Paso Border Crossing

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