From NBC News
On a call with officials, Secretary Mayorkas asked whether Homeland Security was ready for a worst-case scenario of 350,000 or more migrants crossing the border in October.
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials are quietly preparing for what they think could be the biggest surge in traffic at the southern border in decades if a Covid restriction that has blocked most migrants for almost two years is lifted Thursday.
On a call this week with senior Department of Homeland Security officials, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asked whether the department was prepared for a worst-case scenario in which 350,000 to 400,000 migrants cross the border in October, according to two DHS officials familiar with the conversation.
A number that high would nearly double the 21-year record reached in July, when more than 210,000 migrants crossed the border.
The two DHS officials stressed that the estimate is not based on internal intelligence or calculations, saying it is meant to prepare the agency for what could be an overwhelming number of migrants who cross if a court order that lifts the Covid restriction, known as Title 42, takes effect at the end of the week, as is possible.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled Sept. 16 that use of Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authority implemented by the Trump administration to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in March 2020, did not give the Biden administration the authority to block asylum-seekers from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Sullivan said his order, which he issued in response to a lawsuit by advocacy groups, would be effective in 14 days, meaning at some point Thursday.
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The Biden administration has appealed the ruling and may still appeal to the Supreme Court if the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., does not intervene to stop it from taking effect.
Recently, more than 25,000 Haitian migrants arrived in Del Rio, Texas, in a single week, taking DHS by surprise and drawing border agents into the role of crowd control. Images of Border Patrol agents on horseback trying to stop Haitians from crossing the river drew sharp public criticism and led to an internal investigation.
Under Title 42, the Trump administration blocked most asylum-seekers from entering the U.S. and turned them back into Mexico, regardless of their nationalities.
The Biden administration lifted the policy for children who arrived unaccompanied, but it kept it for families and single adults.
In recent months, however, the majority of families and some single adults have been allowed to stay to claim asylum simply because Mexico lacked the capacity to take them back.
