The Washington Examiner’s Anna Giaritelli says the Department of Homeland Security has yet to disclose procedures for handling the influx of immigrants expected as Title 42 ends on Dec. 21, and border agents still “don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“I speak with agents nationwide on the southern border every day, and they’re still telling me, ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen,’” Giaritelli said Tuesday on One America News Network’s In Focus.
“The issue is when Title 42 ends, people cannot be immediately sent back to Mexico or another country. And so [they’ll] have to take people into custody, hold them longer than normal, and it’s going to overwhelm the system,” she told host Addison Smith.
BORDER PATROL FACILITY IN EL PASO OVERWHELMED, 700 IMMIGRANTS OUTSIDE IN NEAR-FREEZING TEMPERATURES
Giaritelli shared from agents that more than 4,500 people were taken into custody over the weekend alone in El Paso, Texas. A facility built under the Trump administration in the city has also blown past its capacity, she said, with more than 700 people left to wait outside in the cold to be processed.
Two other migrant caravans, about 1,000 people each, came into the city this week. When asked how Border Patrol agents responded, Giaritelli said sources revealed they were mostly Nicaraguans and Ecuadorians.
“For Nicaraguans coming across, they’re not even deportable,” Giaritelli noted, which can add to the stress on border agents.
“The U.S. government cannot send them back to Nicaragua — which means they’re going to be released into the United States unless they have a criminal record,” she added.
Also, when asked how President Joe Biden and Democrats can see this happening and still consider the border to be “secure” and their immigration policies to be a “success,” Giaritelli explained that the White House and agents who see the immigrants every day have a different definition for success.
“I think from the Biden administration’s perspective, they’ve gotten … Border Patrol to be very good at detaining, processing, releasing — and that in their mind is a success,” she said.
“I think to [the] Border Patrol, it doesn’t feel like a success because they are releasing so many people,” Giaritelli added.
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The Biden administration also recently asked Congress for $3 billion to cover the influx of immigrants expected as Title 42 ends.
“We’re probably going to see far more releases than the several thousand who are being released from custody every day now,” Giaritelli said.
She explained that most of the money, if granted, will go to things like food, diapers, hospital visits, overtime for agents, and other things to keep people “alive and well” while they’re in custody.
