EL PASO, Texas — The chief of the U.S. Border Patrol rejected claims that the U.S. immigration system and southern border will collapse when public health policy Title 42 is rescinded later this week.
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told reporters in a closed-door roundtable Wednesday that he does not expect agents to see up to 18,000 arrests in a single day as had been forecast by the Department of Homeland Security when Title 42 was slated to end last year.
“The increases that we’ve seen in the last five to six days, I think, were really the surge. I don’t — after May 11 — I don’t expect us to have 17[,000]-18,000 apprehensions like some predicted,” Ortiz said during an invite-only meeting with a dozen reporters in El Paso Wednesday.
“I think that what we see now is continued effort by some to message incorrectly that once Title 42 goes away, it’s going to be a free for all along the border,” Ortiz said. “I don’t see that being the case. Our agents will be out there performing their duties.”
Earlier this week, former President Donald Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social, “TITLE 42 EXPIRES NEXT WEEK. This date will go down in infamy!!! Our Borders will completely collapse. We will be, officially, a THIRD WORLD NATION!”
On Wednesday, Trump claimed that “hundreds of thousands of people will be pouring into our Country today from ‘parts unknown.’”
Border Patrol data indicated that more than 10,000 people were taken into custody Tuesday for illegally entering the country, far below Trump’s claim.
On Tuesday, Border Patrol had 26,354 people in custody nationwide, and five of nine regions on the southern border were at 125% or more over facility capacity.
Agents in three regions — the Rio Grande Valley in southeast Texas, the El Paso-New Mexico area, and southeastern Arizona’s Tucson region — each apprehended more than 2,000 people yesterday.
“What we’re experiencing right now is somewhat unprecedented because now we’re seeing more migrants turning themselves in than what we’ve seen in other periods and in more locations,” Ortiz said.
Title 42 was a pandemic-era policy that allowed the Border Patrol to expel immigrants back across the border immediately. Its ending means immigrants must be taken into custody, a lengthier process that could lead to overcrowding and street releases in border communities.
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Over the past several months, Border Patrol has increasingly processed illegal immigrants under the normal protocols rather than expelling them — a shift back to pre-pandemic procedures that has prepared agents for the amount and type of work they will face come Friday.
“Seventeen percent of the population we encountered yesterday, which was over 10,000, were processed via Title 42. And so to process that population via [the normal way], I mean, it’s not going to be such a significant draw on our processing resources,” Ortiz said. “Our teams are going to be aptly prepared to be able to deal with those numbers. … The challenge becomes if you start to apprehend 13[,000]-14,000.”
