SAN DIEGO AND TIJUANA—With tens of thousands of illegal aliens expected to rush the U.S.–Mexico border in San Diego on May 12 after the Biden’s administration’s planned expiration of public health restrictions on immigration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are bracing for chaos.
Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing 18,000 Border Patrol agents and support personnel, told The Epoch Times as many as 13,000 illegal migrants a day are expected to cross with the collapse of Title 42 at 11:59 p.m. on May 11.
“I would say that we’re looking at a minimum of 13,000,” Judd said on May 10. “We’ve arrested more than 10,000 people per day, for the last three days, and that number just continues to go up.”
Those estimates could reach 16,000 per day if nothing is done to halt the incursion.
The restrictions are known as Title 42, a law enacted in 1944 allowing the federal government to curb immigration to protect public health. The Trump administration imposed these restrictions at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended limiting immigration to reduce the spread of disease.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who has steadfastly denied there is a border “crisis,” blamed Congress for failing to fix the “broken immigration system” for more than two decades and called for “legislative reform,” at a press conference on May 10.
Mayorkas said migrants who cross the border illegally without being properly processed will be ineligible for asylum.
But, Judd said, the Biden administration of misleading the public.
“That’s a half-truth at best,” he said.
While people caught illegally crossing the border will be told they can’t claim asylum under the new rule, they will still have the right to appeal, and because the border patrol can’t hold them until their appeal hearings, they will be released into the United States.
By Brad Jones and John Fredricks
