Title 42 is scheduled to be suspended on December 21, however, several Republican states and the Biden administration's Justice Department are seeking to postpone the termination date due to concerns the US immigration system will be overwhelmed beyond the strain it is currently facing.
More than a thousand migrants formed a line on Wednesday afternoon that stretched more than 300 yards between the banks of the Rio Grande river and the towering steel US border wall layered with barbed wire fencing.
The migrants have been lining up to enter the United States from Juarez since Sunday despite the Trump-era Title 42 policy still in place, which risks that US immigration enforcement may use it to immediately expel them.
Wilmer Mendoza, of Venezuela, arrived to Juarez four days ago but he's held off crossing into the United States because Title 42 is still in place and Venezuelan migrants are more prone to being expelled immediately under the policy.
"It's very cold, the temperature is dropping," Mendoza told Sputnik. "The people sleep in line so they don't lose their place."
Mendoza spent Wednesday afternoon crossing the Rio Grande river to take coffee and food to migrants in line on the US side.
He expressed sympathy for the women and children who have to spend hours in the freezing cold while waiting for their turn to be let into the United States.
The large groups of migrants have been lining up each day this week, Mendoza said. The Venezuelan estimates more than a thousand migrants have waited in line each day, consisting of mostly migrants from Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republican, and Arab countries.
Migrants waiting to cross into the United States wait for news at the border crossing Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico.
© AP Photo / Elliot Spagat
According to media reports, the Biden administration expects some 14,000 asylum-seeking migrants will cross the US southern border into the United States if Title 42 is rescinded next week.
The United States has seen two consecutive record breaking years of illegal crossings into the United States since President Joe Biden assumed office in January 2021.
Well over two million illegal crossings into the United States were recorded in fiscal year 2022, according to CBP data.