El Paso has reached a “tipping point” as thousands of migrants continue to flow across the Mexican border into the US — and it shared its pain Saturday by sending a score to the Big Apple, its mayor said.
“The city of El Paso only has so many resources, and we’ve reached … a tipping point now,” Democratic Mayor Oscar Leeser said at the briefing — where he noted more than 2,000 immigrants are being detained there every day.
He said recent flooding forced the city to charter five buses to take some asylum seekers to places like New York, Chicago and Denver – Democratic strongholds and so-called “sanctuary cities” that cater more to immigrants.
“I think it’s very important to note that we have a broken immigration system,” Lesser said in a city where for the past six weeks, about 350 to 400 people have been entering it every day, a fraction of the current number. “It’s the same thing over and over again.”
He said El Paso is rushing to open new emergency shelters of its own to try to better handle the massive flooding, as existing facilities fall into disrepair.
The recent arrival of mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers in the US is part of a larger number of migrants who have traveled the dangerous route by bus and cargo train to the Mexican border city near San Diego, Calif., and the Texas cities of El Paso and Eagle Pas. to enter America.
Migrants sleep on the sidewalk in El Paso, Texas on September 12, 2023.REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez
Eagle Pass, a town of fewer than 30,000 people, has been inundated mainly since last week, with officials declaring a state of emergency after more than 11,000 asylum seekers arrived in just a few days last week.
Statistics published by The Post show that 1.23 million immigrants have crossed the border to seek asylum in the past 11 months, according to data analyzed by the non-profit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).
Of those, 95,000 said they were headed to New York City – including another caravan of buses sent from Texas on Friday by Gov. Greg Abbott.
A crowded migrant shelter at the El Paso Rescue Mission on August 17, 2023. James Breeden/Shutterstock for NY Post
The crisis has sparked a series of political attacks on President Biden ahead of the 2024 election.
But Abbott and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have also drawn criticism for sending immigrants to liberal cities like New York and Sacramento.
Leeser said all immigrants boarded the El Paso bus to go voluntarily to the city of their choice.
Migrants line up to be processed by the Border Patrol at the El Paso border on September 21, 2023. Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images
He added that while Biden has been a good partner, the country’s entire immigration system is a disaster.
Many immigrants from Venezuela lack transportation to their desired destinations, while El Paso’s current shelter houses only 400 people and must also be prepared to help the homeless, Lesser said.
Over the past 10 days, the city has worked with the US Border Patrol to provide shelter for 6,500 people, Leeser said. About two-thirds of those crossing into El Paso are now single men, he said.
About 32% are families and only 2% are unaccompanied children.
With Postal wire
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
