The Biden administration reaffirmed on Sunday that it was ready to manage a massive influx of migrants, even “extraordinary pressure” at the Mexican border after the lifting of restrictions due to the pandemic, which is controversial with Republicans and worries Democrats.

On CNN, the American Minister of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas repeated on Sunday that his services were ready to manage the new influx of migrants expected after the end, on May 23, of “Title 42”, a device linked to Covid-19 which for the past two years has allowed the immediate expulsion of migrants arrested at the border.

"Don't come"

Alejandro Mayorkas also hammered home a clear message to candidates for illegal immigration: “Do not come”.

Without the restrictions even being lifted, US border police have apprehended an average of 7,800 undocumented migrants every day for the past three weeks, nearly five times more than the average of 1,600 migrants recorded between 2014 and 2019, before the pandemic. .

Asked about projections by the Ministry of Homeland Security according to which these arrivals could reach 18,000 per day after the lifting of restrictions, the minister put them into perspective: “we are not planning 18,000 but we are preparing for different scenarios”.

“There is no doubt that if, in fact, we reach this number, our system will be under extraordinary pressure.

But we are preparing for it,” he added.

More than 1.7 million evictions

A few months before the midterm elections in November, the Republicans attacked the Biden administration on the lifting of these exceptional restrictions, but some elected Democrats from border states also expressed their reservations about the decisions of the White House.

Since the implementation of “Title 42” in March 2020, authorities have deported migrants more than 1.7 million times.

The Biden administration's desire to lift this measure is also threatened by the decision, which fell on Monday, of a Louisiana judge, who agreed with states led by Republicans asking for the blocking of this measure.

A hearing is scheduled for May 13 to determine whether the government can enforce this waiver.

Also invited on the set of Fox News, Alejandro Mayorkas repeated that the system was "broken".

"That's why we're calling for legislation to fix what everyone agrees is a broken immigration system and why we're rebuilding an immigration system that's been dismantled," he added.

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