What's next now that Title 42 has expired

EL PASO, Texas — A local official said the city hasn't seem a dramatic increase of migrants so far, but added that he will be looking to the city’s ability to transport migrants to their next destinations as a way to assess any early impact of the policy change.

“I’m gauging that off of our transportation operations,” Mario D’Agostino, the Deputy City Manager for public health and safety in El Paso, told NBC News Friday. He said El Paso aims to get migrants to their next destination within 24 to 72 hours.

“We have shelter capabilities right now, but when you start getting that large throughput, there’s only so many flights out of El Paso. There’s only so many buses out of El Paso,” D’Agostino said.

He said when a backlog increases to taking four or five days for people to get to their next destination, “that occupies your shelters really quickly.”

D’Agostino said the city opened a mega shelter at a middle school last night. He said there were less than 150 people that were taken in between the shelter at the school and hotel rooms for families. 

Overnight, there were probably about 750 to 900 in the wider shelter system system in the city that included the school, hotel rooms and NGOs that have been housing migrants. That number includes migrants and local people in need of shelter.

Following the end of Title 42, Mexico’s National Institute of Migration will stop granting permits allowing migrants to travel across the country until they reach the northern border with the U.S. unless they have legal documentation, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced in a press conference Friday morning.

The Mexican government also closed 33 centers throughout the country that were used to shelter people who had migrated, according to López Obrador. Mexico was completing a review of the sites following a fire at a center that killed 40 people in the government's custody.

He also cited figures showing that on Thursday Mexico had deported 942 undocumented migrants, 96% of them Venezuelans, as well as 17 Cubans, 15 Guatemalans and one person from Haiti.

In the hours before Title 42 ended, at least 26,560 undocumented migrants remained along Mexico’s northern border. The majority, about 10,000 migrants, were in Ciudad Juárez; another 7,000 people were in Reynosa and 5,500 were in Matamoros, according to López Obrador.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said that the country saw a drop in migrants entering Mexico on Thursday, but did not offer concrete figures.

Click here to follow Noticias Telemundo’s liveblog in Spanish.

The White House accused Republicans of “sabotage” and “political play” after a Florida court temporarily blocked the Biden administration from moving forward with parts of its immigration plan.

“It’s sabotage,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters in a press briefing Friday following the ruling. “It’s pure and simple.”

Jean-Pierre defended the emergency parole program and said the administration would fight the decision, which came ahead of the midnight expiration of Title 42, the pandemic-era immigration measure.

“The claims that CBP is allowing or encouraging mass release of migrants is just categorically false,” she said. “That is not what’s occurring. It is a harmful ruling and the Department of Justice is going to fight it.”

Hours before Title 42 was set to lift, a U.S. district judge in Florida ordered the administration to halt its move to temporarily “parole” migrants awaiting processing after crossing the U.S. border. The decision undercuts the administration's planning as migrants who have amassed along the southern U.S. border prepare to enter the U.S.

Biden’s press secretary described as “shameful” the Republican officials she said were hampering the White House’s efforts to address the crisis.

“They continue to have political stunts, and they don’t want to solve this problem,” Jean-Pierre said. “What we’re seeing from Republican officials is completely shameful because it’s a political play.”

Texas public utility company El Paso Water is coordinating with a local nongovernmental organization to warn migrants about the dangers of crossing the Rio Grande.

The river's currents are expected to worsen in the next several days due to heavy rainfall and an upcoming water release from a nearby dam.

Water from the Caballo Dam, located 100 miles north of El Paso, is set to be released into the Rio Grande today. The water is expected to reach El Paso, along the U.S.-Mexico border, sometime next week.

"The increase of flows could pose a risk for anyone who might be crossing," a spokesperson for El Paso Water said in a statement. "We want our community and migrants to be aware they may find themselves in danger while trying to cross the river or canals."

The utility company said it will work with the Hope Border Institute, a faith-based NGO working in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, to distribute flyers to migrant shelters outlining the dangers of the Rio Grande.

The water release happens every year for the irrigation season, which is crucial for so many farmers and communities "as it is one of our main sources of drinking water after it is treated,” the spokesperson added.

A 17-year-old migrant from Honduras died in the custody of a Florida facility that was sheltering unaccompanied minors for the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to a tweet from the Honduran government and an HHS statement.

He was identified as Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza by the Honduran government. He entered HHS care May 5 and received a clean bill of health, according to a person familiar with the matter. Then on the morning of May 10, he was taken to a nearby hospital where he died, the person familiar said.  

A department spokesperson said the HHS “is deeply saddened by this tragic loss and our heart goes out to the family, with whom we are in touch.” The spokesperson added that officials are “reviewing all clinical details of this case, including all inpatient health care records. A medical examiner investigation is underway.” 

The shelter where Espinoza stayed is in Safety Harbor, Florida, according to the Honduran government. The facility is run by the Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services Inc.

Although there are sighs of relief over the smooth ending of Title 42 last night, El Paso officials said today that the days ahead are the real tests.

Processing of migrants takes longer under Title 8 immigration law, so it is unknown how many people at a time Customs and Border Protection will release and when, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser said. Also, an injunction in a lawsuit attempting to keep Title 42 in place is affecting the pace of release of people from CBP custody, he added. CBP has taken about 32,000 people into custody for processing since Tuesday, officials have said.

"It's the next coming days that will tell how the releases happen, how they are coming into the community and at what rate and what the population truly is," said Mario D'Agostino, El Paso deputy city manager.

Leeser said the city had 1,800 people released to the El Paso area with about 150 asylum-seekers in shelters. Families are in shelters and single adult men and women are going to hotels.

The U.S. maritime borders remain closed, and the end of Title 42 does not change maritime migration policies, the U.S. Coast Guard wrote in a statement.

"Migrants who are interdicted at sea will be immediately repatriated in accordance with policies and plans governing maritime migration in the Florida Straits and the Caribbean Sea," Rear Adm. Brendan C. McPherson, commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District, said in the statement.

He continued, "Migrants who reach our shores in the United States will be subject to expedited removal, and those who do not qualify for protection will be expeditiously removed with at least a five-year bar on returning to the United States."

Migrants who arrive by sea can be sent to their country of origin, their country of departure or a third country "in accordance with polices and plans governing maritime migration in the Florida Straits and the Caribbean Sea," the Coast Guard statement read.