The US will lift Covid-19 border restrictions known as Title 42 on Thursday night, a major shift that has drawn tens of thousands of migrants to the US-Mexico border, straining local communities and intensifying political divisions.
The number of migrants caught crossing illegally has climbed in recent weeks, with daily apprehensions surpassing 10,000 on Monday and Tuesday. US border cities have struggled to shelter migrants and provide transportation to onward destinations.
The Biden administration is surging personnel and funds to the border while implementing a new regulation that will deny asylum to most migrants who cross illegally. The new measure will take effect when Title 42 ends along with the broad Covid public health emergency.
The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said the new rule would mean tougher consequences for migrants crossing illegally who could be deported and barred from the US for five years if they do not qualify for asylum.
Republicans fault Biden for scrapping restrictive policies implemented by Donald Trump, now his party’s frontrunner to face Biden at the polls next year.
Biden administration officials have escalated attacks on Republicans, saying they failed to fix immigration laws or provide adequate border funds.
“I asked the Congress for a lot more money for the border patrol,” Biden told reporters on Wednesday. “They didn’t do it.”
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives aims to pass a bill on Thursday that would toughen border security and restrict access to asylum, but it would face an uphill battle in the Senate, where Democrats hold a majority.
Since Biden took office in January 2021, the country has seen a record 4.6m arrests of migrants crossing illegally, though the tally includes many repeat crossers.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week showed that only 26% approved of Biden’s handling of immigration.
In Texas, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, a fierce critic of Biden’s border policies, expanded an ongoing national guard deployment this week “to help intercept and repel large groups of migrants trying to enter Texas illegally”.
Asked on Wednesday if Texas national guard troops were overstepping legal boundaries by taking on border enforcement duties, Mayorkas said he deferred to the US Department of Justice.
With the Biden administration saying it will toughen enforcement, some migrants have scrambled to cross while Title 42 remains in effect.
Hundreds in San Diego, California, including many small children, have been stuck in a no man’s land between two tall border walls, often for days, as they wait to be processed by overwhelmed border agents.
On Wednesday, volunteers on the US side passed sandwiches through gaps in the wall and said conditions were “squalid”.
Joshua, 23, a migrant from Venezuela, hoped to enter the US before the policy shift. He traveled to the border in Tijuana, Mexico, without his wife and daughter, not wanting to bring them through a dangerous jungle separating Colombia and Panama.
“With God’s protection, nothing is impossible,” he said.
Another Venezuelan migrant, Luis Rivero, speaking through the border fence separating Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas, said this week that he wanted to cross now because the new policy “will be stricter”.
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