Border Democrats warn of crisis as immigrants head into Texas
WASHINGTON — Democrats who represent communities along the border are ratcheting up the pressure on President Joe Biden to take action as a wave of migrants has started crossing into Texas.
“We are weeks, maybe even days, away from a crisis on the southern border. Inaction is simply not an option,” U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said Thursday. “Our country is currently unprepared to handle a surge in migrants in the middle of the pandemic.”
The Laredo Democrat released figures showing the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley had arrested 10,000 migrants in the last week — 2,500 in the last two days alone. Experts said those figures offer only a limited snapshot but fit with broader data trends that suggest the border could be on the verge of another migration surge — especially of unaccompanied minors — on par with those in 2019 and 2014.
“We are approaching the numbers that have characterized past peaks or surges,” said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the
nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “Whether or not it’s a crisis is determined by how the government manages it.”
The Biden administration has said its focus is establishing an “orderly” and “humane” immigration system. The administration ended Trump-era policies requiring migrants to remain in Mexico while their cases are processed and is preparing to convert its immigrant family detention centers in South Texas into rapidprocessing hubs to screen migrant parents and children with a goal of releasing them into the United States within 72 hours.
Republicans have slammed the shift in immigration policy and sought to cast the situation at the border as the first major crisis of Biden’s term.
“All of the signals the Biden administration is sending is that border security and enforcement of our immigration laws come second to their desire to see as many people who show up at the border make their way into the United States and then get lost in the backlog of asylum cases,” said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-texas.
At least one Democrat in a border district is now sounding similar warnings.
U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Mcallen told CNN that if the administration follows through with its plan to quickly release migrants seeking asylum, it will send a message to Central Americans that tens of thousands of people can show up to the border. That would be “catastrophic for our party, for our country, for my region, for my district, in the middle of a pandemic.”
Cuellar, however, noted that even as he’s warning the administration of rising apprehensions, those figures started growing during the final months of the Trump administration.
The Biden administration, too, has said it inherited the situation, which officials have said is a “challenge” and not yet a “crisis.”
“What we are seeing now at the border is the immediate result of the dismantlement of the system and the time that it takes to rebuild it virtually from scratch,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.
“This is a challenge that the border communities, the nongovernmental organizations, the people who care for individuals seeking humanitarian relief all understand is an imperative,” Mayorkas said. “Everyone understands what occurred before us, what we need to do now. And we are getting it done.”
The bulk of the apprehensions in recent months have been single adults, though apprehensions of unaccompanied children are also on the rise and could be on the cusp of a surge, experts said.
The Border Patrol apprehended 5,700 unaccompanied child migrants in January, according to the most recent data available, and anecdotal evidence suggests that number rose considerably in February, said Bolter of the Migration Policy Institute. The 2014 and 2019 surges saw between 7,000 and 9,000 apprehensions a month, with peaks above 10,000, she said.
But the number of families crossing the border appears to be far from the past surges, especially in 2019, which included several months when the Border Patrol apprehended between 50,000 and 60,000 family members. The peak that year was 84,000. In January, there were just 7,300 apprehensions of family members, Bolter said.
And Bolter said it appears that the Biden administration is “trying to manage this actively.”
Cuellar, meanwhile, has called for Biden to continue using a Trump administration public health order to quickly expel migrants during the pandemic, a practice that immigration activists have urged the president to scrap.
Cuellar voiced concern that some of those entering the country may be bringing the coronavirus with them — echoing comments that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott made Wednesday as he sought to deflect criticism from the White House over his decision to rescind the state’s COVID-19 restrictions.
“Migrants are illegally crossing, potentially exposing border communities to the coronavirus and putting us at risk,” Cuellar said. “I urge the Biden administration to listen and work with the communities on the southern border who are dealing with the surge of migrants.”
While Cuellar said the Border Patrol has not been testing for the virus, some border cities and shelters have been testing migrants once they are released. The city of Brownsville, for instance, had tested 1,267 migrants as of Wednesday, and 169 tested positive, a city spokesman said.
CNN reported Thursday that the Homeland Security Department is planning to use Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to bolster community efforts to test, isolate and quarantine migrants released from Border Patrol custody. But the grant money needs to be approved by the state before it can be distributed to border communities. Abbott has so far declined the FEMA aid.
“Border security is strictly a federal responsibility. The federal government alone has the responsibility to test, screen and quarantine illegal immigrants crossing our border who may have COVID,” Abbott said in a statement. “Instead of doing their job, the Biden administration suggested it did not have the sufficient resources and, remarkably, asked Texas to assist them in aiding their illegal immigration program. Texas refused.”
Instead, Abbott blames the
White House.
“The Biden Administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas communities. The Biden Admin. must IMMEDIATELY end this callous act that exposes Texans & Americans to COVID,” Abbott tweeted Wednesday, apparently ignoring the distinction between those who enter the country illegally and those seeking asylum.
Cuellar, meanwhile, said he has been stressing to the White House that federal officials need to engage more with local leaders on the border to get a better understanding of the situation and not only with “the immigration activists where a lot of them live thousands of miles away.”
“I sincerely feel they’re not listening to the border communities,” he said.
Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney who lost to Cuellar by 4 percentage points in the Democratic primary last year, accused him of trying to “generate a fake crisis on the border” for attention.
“Of course the numbers are higher than previous months because our country was committing human rights violations by not following our own laws and treaties,” Cisneros tweeted. “This is a slap in the face to on-theground organizations which have been raising the issue of proper and safe processing for asylum seekers during the pandemic AT LEAST six months in advance.”