More U.S. troops sent to border amid chaotic surge of migrants as restriction policy ends

HOUSTON, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Several thousands of U.S. troops are being deployed along the U.S.-Mexico border, facing a chaotic surge of migrants as Title 42, a public health policy that allows swiftly expelling migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic, comes to an end on Thursday.

The Title 42 policy, introduced in March 2020 under then U.S. President Donald Trump and to end at 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday, has turned migrants back to Mexico more than 2.5 million times without letting them request asylum, according to the latest federal data.

About 2,500 U.S. National Guard troops have already been at the country's southern border. The White House has said another 1,500 troops will be sent there before the end of this month, making the U.S. military presence at the border to a total of 4,000 personnel.

The first set of new troops, about 550 personnel, will head to El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, local media reported.

Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, also announced on Monday that hundreds of Texas National Guard soldiers, equipped with Black Hawk helicopters and C-130s, are being deployed to a number of hot spots along the Rio Grande.

A number of Texas border cities including El Paso and Brownsville, among the hot spots, have recently issued disaster declarations so as to tap into more resources to manage the influx of migrants.

Online videos from the border show hundreds of migrants, including many children, waiting in line along the banks of the Rio Grande to seek asylum in the United States.

In Brownsville alone, where a SUV rammed into a crowd outside a migrants center on Sunday killing eight and injuring more than 10 others, some 7,000 migrants had been in custody as of Tuesday.

More than 10,000 migrants were caught crossing at the U.S.-Mexico border illegally each day on Monday and Tuesday, according to Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

The ripple is felt across the country. In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul issued an executive order on Tuesday, allowing cities and the state to tap into more resources for new migrants.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, when announcing an emergency declaration, said resources of the third largest U.S. city are now stretched to "the breaking point" and existing facilities are "full."

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Judd slammed U.S. President Joe Biden, claiming the crisis at the border is not financial, but policy-related.

"If we went back to policies like Remain in Mexico (under former President Donald Trump), this would end tomorrow," he claimed, highlighting political tensions over the issue.

While mobilizing troops, the Biden administration has also prepared new restrictions for migrants crossing the border, rolling out a regulation on Wednesday that presumes most migrants are ineligible for asylum if they had traveled through another country without seeking protection elsewhere first or if they failed to enter the U.S. lawfully.

Migrants violating the new rule could be deported and barred from the United States for five years, said U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The Biden administration will also open the first "regional processing centers," among about 100 planned, in Colombia and Guatemala so as to direct migrants to legal pathways finally leading into the United States.

The end of Title 42 "does not mean our border is open," Mayorkas argued on Wednesday, criticizing Congress for failing to repair "a broken immigration system."

"Even after nearly two years of preparation, we expect to see large numbers of encounters at our southern border in the days and weeks after May 11," Mayorkas said.

"It's going to be chaotic for a while," Biden addressed the border situation on Tuesday, referring to the expected surge of migrants as the restriction policy ends.