Illegal migrants are using everything from gaping holes in the border fence, to dugouts and the sewage system to continue to cross the US-Mexico border, according to reports.
Amid the flurry of media coverage of the US Supreme Court's decision to block the Biden administration from rescinding the COVID-era Title 42 expulsion policy on the US southern border, it's just another day for illegals desperate to cross into the Unites States.
On December 27, when it became clear that the Trump-era policy allowing to swiftly expel migrants at US borders will remain in effect for at least several months, reports featured photographic evidence of diverse ingenious methods resorted to by migrants and traffickers.
One freshly-slashed 4ft-by-4ft (1.22 meters) hole, strategically positioned close to a row of abandoned buildings, was reportedly found beside the US-85 highway, not far from downtown El Paso, Texas. No one appeared to be patrolling in the vicinity of the makeshift entry point into the US when it was found by reporters. According to police officers, alerted to the discovery, such holes kept reappearing, which is why cameras could be relied upon to monitor any movements by illegals.
Migrants illegally cross into the United States from Mexico via a hole cut in the border fence in El Paso, Texas, US on December 21, 2022.
© AFP 2023 / ALLISON DINNER
Other migrants purportedly dug out holes underneath the border fence, and subsequently rolled their way across. The underground sewage system linking the US and Mexico had also been increasingly used for the purpose of smuggling people across, according to El Paso locals cited in reports. They added that ladders were being used by migrants to access the deep sewage manholes, and the individuals would then emerge from sewer points in the streets making calls for someone in the US “to come pick them up.”
This comes as a Sputnik correspondent reported that construction crews were building a large tent camp in the middle of the desert on the outskirts of El Paso, where tens of thousands of migrants have arrived in recent weeks. US immigration facilities in El Paso, increasingly overwhelmed by the surging migrant numbers, have been releasing several hundreds on the streets or into local shelters amid freezing temperatures.
Title 42, originally conceived under ex-President Donald trump, was put in place to combat COVID-19, and “the current border crisis is not a COVID crisis,” argued Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch who joined the three liberals on the US Supreme Court bench to block the Biden administration from rescinding the Title 42 expulsion policy. The ruling came down to a 5-4 vote in response to a emergency request earlier submitted by 19 Republican state attorney generals.
The court indicated that oral arguments on whether Republican-leaning states can intervene in the ongoing litigations regarding the public-health-based order will take place in February or March, with a final decision likely by late June.
Title 42 gives the federal government the power to take any emergency action to keep diseases from spreading nationwide, as was the case during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic under the Trump administration. However, US border agents and customs officials have used Title 42 extensively over the past two years to expel persons trying to enter the country illegally via the southern border. Critics of Title 42 have slammed it as a "racist" and "unjust" policy. On the other hand, US border patrol and governors, mayors, and lawmakers from states that border Mexico have expressed fears that pulling the plug on Title 42 would result in a surge of undocumented immigrants amid the raging border crisis.
The Biden administration had earlier filed an appeal to the US Supreme Court, requesting that it deny a bid from several Republican states to keep in place Title 42. The policy was due to expire on December 21, but the US Supreme Court decided to hear last-minute arguments by the Biden administration.
The United States has witnessed two consecutive record-breaking years of illegal crossings into the country since Joe Biden assumed office in January 2021, with Title 42 one of the few remaining throwbacks to his predecessor's hardline immigration policies.