Around 2,600 undocumented migrants were seen crossing the U.S-Mexico border into El Paso in less than 24 hours over the weekend, Fox News reported.
A long line of migrants was waiting to be taken into custody by Border Patrol agents, with more expected to be on their way.
Before the undocumented immigrants were intercepted by Border Patrol agents, Mexican police escorted around 20 buses full of migrants back to Ciudad Juarez, a Mexcian city directly across from El Paso.
The migrants were transferred to several non-governmental organizations, from where the migrants walked to the border.
A video shared by national Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin shows the police escort driving the buses down the highway on their way to meet the NGOs. Additionally, Melugin posted several pictures and videos showing the long line of migrants that had just crossed into El Paso.
Border Patrol agents claim that they are seeing a surge of undocumented migrants at the southern border. So far in the Fiscal Year 2023, which began in October, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials have intercepted more than 485,000 migrants. Officials expect to hit the half-a-million mark this weekend.
The figures for October seem to indicate that Fiscal Year 2023 will outpace the migrant numbers seen in the Fiscal Year 2022, which hit 517,000 encounters by the end of December. The fiscal Year 2022 had already broken records for the numbers of migrants intercepted, surpassing the 216,000 encountered in Fiscal Year 2021 during the same period, and the 458,058 encounters that took place over the entire Fiscal Year 2020.
The rise in border crossings comes as the Trump-era immigration policy Title 42 is expected to end in the coming weeks. Under the policy, officials could rapidly expel migrants without letting them seek asylum to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus within the U.S.
Title 42 is expected to end in a couple of weeks, after U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan struck down the policy, claiming that it was “arbitrary and capricious” and it violated federal regulatory law.
