The Secretary of Homeland Security of the United States, Alejandro Mayorkas, acknowledged on Sunday that the country is preparing to receive a wave of immigrants and face “extraordinary pressure” on the border with Mexico once the entry restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Interviewed by the ABC network, Mayorkas admitted the magnitude of the problem and repeated the message of “Don’t come” to any possible migrant who is thinking of crossing the border illegally.
President Biden’s plan to put an end to Title 42 on May 23, the measure that currently allows the rapid expulsion of immigrants for health reasons, has provoked claims from various political sectors.
“There is unanimity in recognizing that the system is collapsed,” Mayorkas said on Fox News Sunday. And he stressed that legislation is urgently needed to provide a long-term solution.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency maintains that in recent weeks it has intercepted an average of 7,800 daily undocumented immigrants along the southwest border with Mexico, almost five times the average of 1,600 registered between 2014 and 2019, before the coronavirus outbreak.
Department of Homeland Security officials said last March that the number could rise to 18,000 a day after the lifting of Title 42.
“There is no question that if we do indeed hit that number, it will be an extraordinary strain on our system,” Mayorkas told CNN’s State of the Union.
Title 42 was established under the Trump administration. His critics accused him of invoking public health concerns to implement an easy way to limit the entry of migrants through the southern border, where mainly Central Americans and Mexicans enter.
Border arrests hit an all-time high in 2021 and are projected to exceed that pace this year.
Anticipating a large influx, the US government expanded border facilities and increased its capacity to process migrants.
