National Guard arrives at southern border ahead of Title 42 termination, likely migration surge
Military and state police officials have descended upon the U.S. border with Mexico ahead of the termination of the Title 42 immigration rule and an expected wave of illegal migration.
Troops with the Texas National Guard and accompanying support vehicles have arrived in the border city of El Paso, according to the Washington Examiner.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in November declared an "invasion" and invoked constitutional powers to respond to the crisis, with which he asserts the federal authorities have largely failed to deal.
Abbott asserted at the time that deploying troops to the border would fall within his emergency powers, and said he would also build border walls, deploy gunboats, and send other resources to border posts to manage the influx. Moreover, he claimed he was empowered to label drug cartels as terrorist organizations and to negotiate with foreign entities on his own to resolve the crisis.
The governor's latest deployment comes ahead of the anticipated end of Title 42, a COVID-19 era order allowing for the swift deportation of would-be migrants hailing from nations known to host a communicable disease, i.e., COVID-19.
The order was set to expire on Dec. 21 after a U.S. District Court judge ruled it "arbitrary and capricious," but the Supreme Court has since stepped in to hear an appeal from several Republican states seeking to keep it in place.
Border officials have deported an estimated 2.5 million would-be migrants under this order since its implementation. Republicans and border authorities alike anticipate a considerable surge in migration levels should the federal government lose one of its main tools of speedy deportation upon Title 42's termination.
The immigration system is already facing considerable strain due to already-record-high illegal migration, with border authorities reporting 2.4 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2022 alone and nearly 4 million since President Joe Biden took office in January of 2021.