Biden predicts chaos as border lockdown rules eased

The US border with Mexico will be “chaotic for a while”, Joe Biden has acknowledged, days before the lifting of pandemic-era rules.

Migrant people cross through the banks of the Rio Grande to the US on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

The US border with Mexico will be “chaotic for a while”, Joe Biden has acknowledged, days before the lifting of pandemic-era rules that have made claiming asylum at the frontier all but impossible.

Tens of thousands of people are massing at border crossings awaiting the expiration of so-called Title 42 overnight on Thursday.

Thousands have already ­entered the US, squeezing through the holes that pockmark the division between the world’s wealthiest country and its poorer neighbour, and a spike in asylum claims is expected.

The Texan cities of El Paso, Brownsville and Laredo have declared a state of emergency as they struggle to cope with hundreds of people – most from Latin America, some from China, Russia and Turkey – who are already there.

Asked if the US was ready for a surge in crossings, the US President said: “It remains to be seen. It’s going to be chaotic for a while.”

The Title 42 rules were put in place in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when Donald Trump was president, ostensibly to prevent people with the virus entering the country.

In practice, it has been little more than a crude tool to swiftly expel those trying to migrate.

From Friday, migrants will again be able to lodge asylum claims and have their cases dealt with through the legal system, a process that can take years.

Mr Biden’s opponents in the Republican Party have hammered the Democrat over his border policy, which they say amounts to throwing open the doors, with dire forecasts that more than a million people could arrive in the next three months, overwhelming an already stretched system.

Mr Biden has ordered 1500 troops to the frontier, where they are expected to assist border ­patrol agents with the processing of applicants.

With a presidential election 18 months away and immigration a regular faultline in the country’s fractious politics, Mr Biden is hoping new rules – and the influx of troops – will help staunch that flow.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Monday lashed out at the President, accusing him of “laying down the welcome mat”.

The Republican said he was sending members of the Texas ­National Guard to “hotspots all along the border to help intercept and repel large groups of migrants trying to enter Texas illegally”. Some of those troops were visible on Tuesday at the border in El Paso. Hundreds of migrants who had already crossed into the US – many of them Venezuelans – were queuing in El Paso to hand themselves in to border patrol agents.

AFP