The Department of Homeland Security (HSD) is preparing for potential mass border-crossing attempts by migrants when it soon suspends Title 42, which has prevented nearly a million asylum applications since 2020.
Some 25,000 migrants seeking asylum remain on the Mexican border. Still, an unofficial estimate by HSD is that up to 170,000 migrants from Mexico and Central America would try to cross the border to seek asylum as soon as Title 42 ends.
Federal authorities gave that version on condition of anonymity to the Axios portal, but without officially confirming it to Chula Vista Today.
For two years, Title 42 has allowed border officials to ignore asylum requests from migrants who cross the border and return them to Mexico immediately, assuming that this is how they prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Although there is no official version in San Diego, a Tijuana official, Enrique Lucero, from the office of attention to migrants, said Thursday that Title 42 will end in April without specifying a date.
For its part, Axios says that the HSD is preparing to respond to migrant flows through a Southwest Border Coordination Center (SBCC), "recently created, and not previously reported."
"It is essentially a war room to coordinate an inter-institutional response," said that medium.
The Mexican government has not been informed about it either.
The administration of President Joe Biden has been running the Stay in Mexico program again since December, which makes asylum seekers admitted by the United States remain in cities on the Mexican border.
But that program only admits seven new migrants per day along the entire border, and only Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, and Colombians.
