DHS estimates 25,000 migrants already waiting in Mexican shelters just south of the border.
QUICK FACTS:
- U.S. intelligence officials are bracing for the more than 170,000 migrants expected at the Mexico border when COVID-era policies that allow instant expulsions during the public health emergency are ended, Axios reports.
- Title 42—a temporary Trump-era order up for renewal in early April—has been used more than 1 million times to rapidly expel migrants at the southern border without hearing asylum claims.
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence estimates roughly 25,000 migrants are already waiting in Mexican shelters just south of the border, waiting for Title 42 to end.
- DHS Deputy Secretary John Tien on Wednesday asked employees “to consider stepping forward to support the DHS Volunteer Force,” citing large numbers of migrants at the southwest border, Axios notes.
- The department could bring hundreds or thousands of additional personnel from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, Citizenship and Immigration Services, and medical personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services.
INSIDER INFO:
- Internal discussions have raised alarms that human trafficking networks throughout Mexico and Central America will exploit the situation to “generate a mass migration event,” according to Axios.
- Top Biden officials representing multiple agencies have been meeting to discuss a government-wide plan to deal with a potential record-breaking influx of migrants, DHS branding it the “Southwest Border Mass Irregular Migration Contingency Plan.”
BACKGROUND:
- The number of encounters with migrants at the border rose in February to 165,000, Axios reports.
- Border patrol arrests reached an all-time high in 2021 at nearly 1.7 million.
- Officials are projecting similar numbers for this fiscal year with the end of Title 42.
