Any doubt about what awaits the U.S. after the end of the Title 42 pandemic border expulsion policy can be settled by looking at the headlines plastered across newspapers south of the border.
Ten thousand migrants were massed in Matamoros, just below the southern tip of Texas, awaiting their chance to make a run at the border, according to La Jornada. In Tijuana, it was 9,000. In Juarez, the mayor told the local newspaper 20,000 migrants have put down roots but would likely rush the border if Title 42 expires.
“When one has the desire to overcome there are no borders,” one Guatemalan man told El Diario.
U.S. news is replete with coverage of the legal battle over the pandemic expulsion policy and stories about political negotiations abound.
But you have to turn to the Spanish-language press to see who’s waiting on the other side, why they’re coming, and what they hope to achieve once here, said Todd Bensman, national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies who has been tracking news south of the border and said it challenges much of what goes as conventional wisdom in the U.S.
“The immigrants are telling them why they’re coming, and they’re coming because Title 42 is falling away and leaving open to them this guaranteed-entry asylum system. They all know it, and they’re all saying it, out loud and across newspapers,” Mr. Bensman said.
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In Nicaragua, a line three days long had queued up to get passports to be able to exit the country en route north.
In central Mexico, Mr. Bensman found reports of a freight train traveling north had more than 1,000 migrants riding on its rooftop.
Title 42 was set to expire Tuesday.
A last-second stay by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. delayed that. He said the court needed to see arguments by GOP-led states trying to stop the end of Title 42. The Biden administration has joined forces with immigrant-rights activists to demand the court allow the policy to expire as soon as next week.
Officials acknowledge a massive surge of illegal immigration awaits at the end of Title 42, but the White House has suggested blame lies with global upheavals pushing people to leave their homes, smugglers peddling “misinformation” to entice them to travel to the U.S. and Republicans on Capitol Hill who keep saying President Biden has left the border open to them once they get here.
Immigrant-rights groups say those coming are asylum-seekers who deserve the chance to make claims under U.S. law — something that Title 42 denied them.
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The stories from Spanish-language news outlets tell a different story.
A few say they are fleeing violence but rarely does that involve claims of actual persecution by the government. Most told reporters they’re coming for money and jobs, often planning to reunite with relatives already here and then send money back to other relatives still at home.
“I want to support my family,” one woman from Honduras told El Diario, saying she left behind a 9-year-old girl at home when making her attempt to get into the U.S.
Rosa, 39, told the Spanish-language news agency EFE that she left Nicaragua because things were getting “too expensive.”
That’s not the story most will tell once they cross, however.
They’re more likely to say they worry for their lives if they are sent back home — magic words that trigger what’s known as “credible fear” and start the asylum process, which gives them a foothold in the U.S. while they have a chance to pursue a full asylum claim.
That foothold can last years, and there’s little indication the government has the willpower, much less the personnel, to oust them once their claims fail.
“We can look forward to another wave of mass asylum fraud violations,” Mr. Bensman said.
Rosa and her two children were among the lucky ones — Nicaraguans aren’t subject to Title 42 expulsions, so they had already been caught and released by U.S. authorities, and were waiting at the airport in El Paso for a flight.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants have been expelled under Title 42 over the last year.
Mr. Bensman said once the program ends, many of them, still waiting in Mexico, will make another attempt.
“Venezuelans, Ukrainians, Central Americans, where we airlifted them by the tens of thousands by expensive flights, they’re now turning around and coming back,” he said.
One irony is that the Biden administration is aware of how effective Title 42 has been.
Hours after the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court this week to let the policy expire, Homeland Security issued a statement pointing to its ability to quickly oust 3,400 migrants from El Paso this week, helping relieve a crush of overcrowding in that Texas border city.
While seeking the end of Title 42, the administration has no policy ready to replace it for speedy deportations.
Officials have said they hope to use a process known as expedited removal.
But according to Homeland Security data released last week by Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma Republican, just 7% of people put into expedited removal proceedings this year have actually been removed.
Under the Obama administration, the figure was 69%.
Homeland Security did not respond to multiple inquiries about those numbers.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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