U.S. asks court to end asylum limits, but with a short delay
EL PASO>> Texas dispatched National Guard troops to the border, and San Diego businesses anticipated a wave of Christmas shoppers frommexico, as tens of thousands of asylum-seekers at the border waited for a Supreme Court ruling that could allow themto enter the United States.
The U. S. government asked the Supreme Court not to lift the limits before Christmas, in a filing a day after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order to keep the pandemicera restrictions in place. Before Roberts issued that order, they had been slated to expire Wednesday.
Under the restrictions, officials have expelled asylum- seekers inside the United States 2.5 million times, and turned away most people who requested asylum at the border, on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 under a public health rule called Title 42. Both U.S. and international law guarantee the right to claim asylum.
The federal government also asked the court to reject a last-minute effort by a group of conservative-leaning states to maintain the measure. It acknowledged that ending the restrictions
will likely lead to “disruption and a temporary increase in unlawful border crossings,” but said the solution is not to extend the rule indefinitely.
With the decision on what comes next going down to the wire, pressure is building in communities along both sides of the U.SMexico border.
In El Paso, Democratic Mayor Oscar Leeserwarned that shelters across the border in Ciudad Juárez were packed to capacity, with an estimated 20,000 migrants prepared to cross into the U.S.
The city rushed to expand its ability to accommodate more migrants by converting large buildings into shelters, as the Red Cross brings in 10,000 cots. Local officials
also hope to relieve pressure on shelters by chartering buses to other large cities in Texas or nearby states, bringing migrants a step closer to relatives and sponsors in coordination with nonprofit groups.
“We will continue to be prepared for whatever is coming through,” Leeser said.
Texas National Guard members, deployed by the state to El Paso this week, used razor wire on Tuesday to cordon off a gap in the border fence along a bank of the Rio Grande that became a popular crossing point for migrants who waded through shallow waters to approach immigration officials in recent days. A few hundred people gathered alongside the row of razor wire that separated them from the National Guard troops.
Texas said it was sending 400National Guard personnel to the border city after local officials declared a state of emergency. Leeser said the declaration was aimed largely at protecting vulnerable migrants, while a statement from the Texas National Guard said the deployment included forces used to “repel and turnback illegal immigrants.”
In San Diego, a sense of normalcy returned to the nation’s busiest border crossing despite uncertainty leading up to Roberts’ decision.
The San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce said it learned from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that the more modern, western half of the airport-sized pedestrian crossing would reopen to U.s.-bound travelerswednesday at 6 a.m. The lanes, which lead to an upscale outlet mall, have been closed to almost allmigrants since early 2020 to accommodate Title 42 processing.
The reopening comes “just in time for last-minute shoppers, visiting family members and those working during the holidays,” the chamber wrote tomembers. It said it didn’t know when the area would reopen to travelers going to Mexico from the United States.