As thousands of migrants pour across the US border daily, El Paso says it is ready to start busing asylum seekers out — and New York is set to be a top destination.

The Texas city is straining under the weight of over 1,000 people daily handing themselves over to border agents, with its processing centers oversubscribed and migrants camping out on its streets.

To manage the crisis, city leaders say they have to take action to move along with those who have been given papers and are in the US legally.  

“If we start getting 5,000-10,000 people a day, they’re not coming to El Paso; they’re coming to the United States. Our job will be to continue to help our asylum-seekers get to their next destination,” Mayor Oscar Leeser explained Thursday.

“At this point, we’re preparing for the unknown,” he added.

“The unknown is we don’t know how many people are going to be here.”

As many as 13,000 migrants a day could cross the border when pandemic-era policy Title 42 ends, according to the state’s governor.

El Paso confirmed said this week it has been granted federal funds to enable it to start busing people out of town, and that it will ask migrants what destination they want to head to.

What is Title 42 and what does its end mean for US border immigration?

What is Title 42?

Title 42 is a federal health measure enforced by the US Border Patrol. It allows the agency to kick certain migrants out of the US and return them to Mexico. This includes asylum seekers, who under international law have the legal right to make an asylum claim in America.

Currently, migrants who cross the border illegally and who are from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua or Venezuela are subject to Title 42 and could be sent to Mexico.

How did Title 42 start?

President Donald Trump invoked the law in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue the policy. The Trump administration made the case that keeping migrants out of the country would slow down the spread of infections and maintain the safety of federal agents encountering migrants.

What has happened with Title 42 under Biden?

When President Biden took over, he continued to enforce Title 42 with one important change from his predecessor. Biden said Border Patrol agents were only allowed to expel migrants from certain countries under his direction. That meant migrants seeking asylum from countries like Cuba and Venezuela could still seek asylum if they arrived at the border and stay in the US while their cases were decided in court — unless they had a criminal record.

What is happening with Title 42 now?

Title 42 is supposed to be a health policy, not an immigration law. It will end at 11:59 p.m. May 11, when the Biden administration ends all COVID-19-related policies.

Why is it controversial?

Many have called for the policy’s end, saying it’s illegal and that international law guarantees people the right to seek asylum.

Others, like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, warn that the southern border could see up to 13,000 migrants per day crossing with the intention to stay in the country when the measure ends.

What would the end of Title 42 mean for immigration into the US?

It’s unclear exactly how many people have been expelled under Title 42 because there have been scores of people who have attempted to enter the country numerous times and been rejected again and again, but the US Border Patrol said it made an all-time high of more than 2.3 million arrests at the border in the last fiscal year. Forty percent of people who were expelled from the country were ejected under the rules of Title 42.

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The city previously bused 10,000 migrants to the Big Apple in 2022, which Leeser says was with the blessing of mayor Eric Adams, who even came to the border for a tour.

“I do want to thank Mayor Adams for coming to El Paso and looking at our operations, what we deal with day in and day out,” Leeser said, adding: “I do consider Mayor Adams a friend, and I will continue to work with him.”

However, leaders in New York are now begging their counterparts in Texas to stop sending asylum seekers.

The city has admitted 60,000 migrants in the last year and still has 37,500 people housed in 122 shelters across the five boroughs, stretching its resources to the limit.

Earlier this week, Adams called Texas’s governor Gregg Abbott “racist” for busing some 5,200 migrants to “hurt Black-run cities” of New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia — even though the mayor of Philly is white.

New York and Chicago are the top two destinations for migrants, according to other organizations that help migrants move from the border further inland.

Leeser estimated there are up to 15,000 migrants in Juarez — the Mexican city directly across the border from El Paso — waiting to cross into the US, although Mexican officials have projected a number closer to 35,000.

Leeser also revealed a migrant caravan of 3,500 strong is expected to arrive in his area just next week as Title 42 expires, even though measures have been put in place by the US government to keep rejecting migrants from certain countries after it expires.

Under a state of emergency declared by the city on Sunday, El Paso is eligible for more federal and state help, and as part of that, they said they will allow Abbott to move migrants as part of his controversial busing program, which has drawn the ire of democrat led-cities where he had chartered buses.

Future transportation out of the desert city would also depend on how many migrants crossed into the US legally, the mayor said.

Some 2,000 illegal immigrants have mixed in with migrants authorized to be in the country at a downtown El Paso church, according to city officials.

It is illegal to transport migrants who are not documented, so only legal asylum-seekers can be transported out of town, but it is up to border patrol to separate out who is documented and who is not.