The lifting of the COVID-era Title 42 this week will cause “total chaos” on the southern border where cities are already overwhelmed by the huge influx of migrants anticipating the tip of the health policy, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.
A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a bid from Republican-led states to suspend a lower court’s ruling in November that can allow this system that has been used to eject hundreds of migrants to run out on Wednesday.
”If the courts don’t intervene and put a halt to the removal of Title 42, it’s going to be total chaos,” Abbott told ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz in an interview out Sunday.
Former President Donald Trump instituted Title 42 within the early months of the pandemic to limit immigrants who can have been infected with the coronavirus from coming into the US.
Under Title 42, law enforcement federal officials have removed 2.5 million migrants apprehended on the border, in accordance with government statistics.
Texas was one among the states asking the courts to maintain the policy in place.
Raddatz asked Abbott why Texas and the opposite states sought to maintain Title 42 in effect, saying it deals with a public health risk, not immigration policy.
“Whether it’s COVID or another issue, when you will have people coming in from across the globe without knowing in any respect what their health status is, that nearly by definition is a public health risk. There’s every reason to maintain that in place,” Abbott replied.
The lifting of the policy will lead to greater than 6,000 migrants crossing the border each day, in accordance with estimates, meaning that border towns already combating housing and feeding immigrants will likely be inundated further.
The mayor of El Paso, Texas, declared a state of emergency on Saturday because the deadline approached.
“Our asylum seekers will not be secure,” Mayor Oscar Leeser said at a press conference. “We now have lots of and lots of on the road and that’s not the best way we treat our people.”
Lesser said the town can have to resort to using a close-by military base to deal with immigrants.
Abbott, who shipped hundreds of immigrants from Texas to Democratic-run cities across the country, including Recent York, said the sheer numbers of illegal immigrants coming to the US are hampering the possibilities of others who arrive legally to get asylum.
“There are people across the globe who’ve a sound, a solid, reason to return to the US and so they can achieve this legally straight away. The individuals who have the power to return to the US legally get pushed further and further and further back the road each day with the hundreds of illegal immigrants coming across the border,” he said.
Raddatz pushed back on the “open border” claims raised by some Republicans, saying she’s never heard President Biden say there was an open border but she has heard Abbott, Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis repeat it.
“It was known from the time that Joe Biden got elected that Joe Biden supported open borders,” the Texas governor said.
“It is understood by the cartels, they’ve sophisticated information,” he continued. “Whether or not the Biden administration goes to implement the immigration laws or not is understood internationally but most significantly, known among the many cartels.”