Border chaos in Arizona seems inevitable as Title 42 ends
In just three days, Title 42 restrictions at the border will end. Fortunately, the Biden administration is on top of it, fully prepared to manage the coming crush of ...
Yeah, nobody’s buying that.
Even Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, a die-hard progressive, seems worried.
A year ago, Gallego was calling for an end to the pandemic-era policy that has been used more than 2.7 million times to expel border crossers since it was enacted in March 2020.
Now he’s sounding the alarm about what Biden’s plan — or possible lack of one — is going to mean for Arizona.
Gallego, Sinema want to do the unlikely
“I’ve heard directly from leaders in our border communities and it’s abundantly clear that they, through no fault of their own, are simply unequipped to handle the surge of migrants that are expected when Title 42 ends,” Gallego said last week.
“They need tangible resources like buses, beds, personnel and funds to both process asylum claims in an orderly way and keep their communities safe. …. With Title 42 set to end on May 11, we need the Biden administration to act, and to act fast.”
Gallego — who is hoping to replace Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema next year — is asking Biden to do, in a few days, what he hasn’t been able to do in a few years.
Sure, that’ll happen.
Right around the time when Biden catches up with those 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children his Department of Health and Human Services is supposed to be watching. A bunch of them are now working in factories and other sweatshops, according to The New York Times. (Welcome to the 19th century!)
“Everyone here in Arizona knows we are not prepared,” Sinema said on CBS’s “Face the Nation”, which aired on Sunday. “The Biden administration has had two years to prepare for this and did not do so. And our state is going to bear the brunt and migrants will be in crisis as soon as next week. It will be a humanitarian crisis because we are not prepared.”
Arizona knows what could fix this mess
Last week, Sinema, along with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., introduced a bill to temporarily extend Biden’s authority to expel migrants without a hearing after Title 42 ends. This, to give the administration and Congress time to finally act like leaders and address the problem.
That won’t happen.
Yet it seems painfully obvious what needs to be done.
The elephant in the room is that hunk of Swiss cheese we call a border.
Exhibit A in the case that it needs shoring up was on display late last month in Texas where five innocents were executed by a Mexican national who had been deported twice in 2009 and again in 2012 and yet again in 2016.Along with hardening up the border, we need to update our visa system so that the workers we need can come here legally (and to ensure they leave if and when those visas expire).
We need to retool the asylum system to provide protection more quickly for those who qualify for it and turn away those who don’t.
And yes, we need to offer “Dreamers” the chance to become citizens in this, the only country many of them have ever known.
Feds tout a plan, but it could take a while
Sadly, none of that will happen because it’s always an election year or the year before an election year and there are political points to be made. We are far too entrenched in our respective foxholes to actually come to a compromise.
And so we wait for Thursday and the inevitable run for the border once Biden lifts Title 42.
The Department of Homeland Security has predicted that upward of 10,000 migrants will cross the border illegally every day after Title 42 ends. That’s nearly double the daily average in March.
Other internal government projections suggest it could go as high as 13,000 daily crossings.
Relax, we are told. The Biden administration has a plan.
One that includes Latin American processing centers, a phone app and a new regulation making it more difficult for non-Mexican migrants to get asylum if they did not first seek it in a country they crossed to get here.
When Title 42 ends: New US migrant plan hinges on Mexico
“It’s going to take our plan a while to really take hold, for people to understand that they can access lawful, safe, orderly pathways before they reach the border,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday on “Face the Nation”. “And quite frankly, if they come to the border, they will receive a consequence under our enforcement authorities.
“We are prepared."
Title 42's end has disaster written all over it
It’s just that nobody on the front lines here in Arizona has apparently seen evidence of it.
Me? I’m remembering that time when overwhelmed Border Patrol agents, having no place to put people, dumped weary Venezuelans and Chileans in a park in Gila Bend.
This tiny town of 2,000 people, set deep in the desert, has no bus stop, no shelters and absolutely no ability to help immigrants in search of asylum.
One of the children, hoping to reunite with his mother, asked if this was Delaware.
Yeah, Thursday has disaster written all over it.
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona border could descend into chaos as Title 42 ends
