80,000 Illegal Migrants Heading To US, Crossing Southern Border As Title 42 Ends

As the Biden administration plans to wind down the pandemic-era border restriction on Thursday, broad swaths of migrants from South America have amassed at the U.S.-Mexico border, with some 80,000 currently stationed in Guatemala already planning to head to the southern border, according to a report.

Thousands of migrants are already stationed at different points at the southern border and camping on the Mexican side in anticipation of the end of Title 42 on May 11, sources told the New York Post.

As a result, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection are having a hard time handling the thousands of daily influx of migrants hoping to get into the U.S.

“There are 80,000 illegals cutting through Guatemala right now,” Republican Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, who is representing a district some 450 miles from the southern border, told the news outlet.

He said he learned about the influx of migrants at the border after speaking with the Guatemalan president, prompting him to immediately phone the White House to share the information.

However, Gonzales said no one from the Biden Administration was picking up.

The migrants seemingly came from different South and Central American countries, making their way to Mexico through Guatemala.

In exchange for U.S. aid, Mexico is also working to secure its border, bolstering its law enforcement to help police asylum seekers. The Post was also able to uncover a camp located in Tapachula in the state of Chiapas just over the border from Guatemala run by the country’s immigration officials.

There are about 60,000 migrants currently staying in the camp, Mexican officials confirmed with The Nation in a report.

The outlet also reported that “protests, hunger strikes, and clashes with police are common” in the area.

Although estimates on how many of the 80,000 migrants preparing to leave for the U.S. border will reach the southern border, the U.S. is expecting up to 13,000 migrants a day trying to enter the U.S. when Title 42 ends.

Title 42 is a federal health measure enacted during the Trump administration in 2020 that allowed the U.S. Border Patrol to keep migrants out of the U.S. and return them to Mexico. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said ending Title 42 would be catastrophic for the U.S.

“With the Biden Administration ending Title 42 this Thursday, President Biden is laying down a welcome mat to people across the entire world, saying that the United States border is wide open and it will lead to an incredible amount of people coming across the border illegally,” Abbott told reporters at a press conference on Monday.

Texas has already deployed its National Guard at the border to help manage the situation.

Statistics from the U.S. Border Patrol estimated that close to 81,000 have already attempted to cross the border in the last 10 days. The agency also said that 26,000 managed to cross the border without being detected.