The end of Title 42 would allow thousands of migrants amassed at the southern US border to scatter across the state of Texas and other US states, as well, leaving officials “with no idea where they are, what their plans are," Julie Clark, Candidate for Congressional District TX23 told Sputnik.
The public health emergency statute, invoked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the Trump administration at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, had also served as a tool to deter the influx of asylum seekers. The statute made it possible to immediately deny entry to undocumented migrants, but it expired on May 11. Ahead of the date, dozens of US border patrol agents, US military personnel, and Texas state police officers were positioned along the border in El Paso to deal with the potential surge.
Echoing the torrent of warnings as to what would follow once Title 42 was discarded, Julie Clark warned of chaos as border authorities “cannot process that many people.”
Furthermore, with the cartels “owning” the border right now, many of these people “pay a price to the cartels.”
“And so what's going to happen is that they're going to not be able to get a job here because of E-Verify, and they're going to have to turn to other measures to be able to… pay their bills, which is going to be crime," Clark said.
Weighing in on the return to a section of US code known as Title 8 to deal with the border issues, with its expedited removal process, and asylum seekers being interviewed by phone within hours of finding themselves in Border Patrol custody, with the use of the CBPOne App, Clark said:
“We don't have any type of documentation and we have thousands and thousands of missing kids. And so how is that ever going to be implemented if you don't have a contactor where you can locate these people that enter the country?.. Just in the last six months, there have been over 70,000 unaccompanied children… I mean, that is an issue with the sex trafficking, the drug trafficking. This is what happens.”
According to the Congressional candidate, every town in Texas is “now a border town.”
“The cartels own everything...and it's only going to get worse because the cartels are setting up cells across the country.”
Concerning how to secure the border, she said the US definitely needs “to be working with the Mexico president," to “make sure that that side of the border is protected as well.” Clark argued that sending the military to the Southern border was what needed to happen, and appropriate legislation set in place.
The recently introduced House Bill 29, the “Border Safety and Security Act,” put forward by Congressman Chip Roy, R-TX, was also applauded as a way to beef up security at the US-Mexico border. The bill, among other things, would require turning away any illegal migrant who cannot be detained pending an asylum claim, or placed in a program similar to “Remain in Mexico.”
As for US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisting there would be “stiff consequences for irregular migration,” and that the border was "not open," Clark stated:
"I identify an open border as someone who is walking across the border and... they have not registered with United States of America that they are here. And they go missing and we don't know where they are."
To hear more analysis of the US border issues by Julie Clark, Candidate for Congressional District TX23, listen to Sputnik's Faultlines.