More Texas cities declare emergencies over migrant crisis

Two further Texas cities have declared states of emergency over the border crisis as they become completely overrun with migrants.

Brownsville — the most eastern point of the southern land border with Mexico — issued a disaster declaration after 15,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, crossed over to the US in a single week and overwhelmed border forces.

“We’ve never seen these numbers before,” Brownsville Police Department Spokesman Martin Sandoval told The Border Report.

Customs and Border Protection said usually they deal with less than 2,000 migrants attempting to cross at Brownsville per week.

The influx resulted in the Border Patrol sending migrants to its facilities in Laredo, Texas to help out.

Laredo has also been helping to relieve pressure from El Paso, the top spot for migrant apprehensions in the country, but it has also now been overwhelmed and over the weekend declared a state of emergency.

“I do want to make the point that these are not migrants crossing in here in the Laredo border, but these are migrants being transferred here from other places, and to be processed here in Laredo,” Mayor Victor Trevino told the Border Report.

“Because of this, we don’t want to be faced with an overwhelming amount, and we’re not prepared.”

The surge in migrants is related to the end of Title 42 — the pandemic-era policy which allows US Border Patrol to send asylum-seekers from certain countries back to Mexico — on May 11.

Before migrants can be ejected they have to be processed and recorded, which takes a few days and is causing huge problems for border patrol.

CBP has space to temporarily hold 2,000 migrants in Laredo and is already nearing a 1,500 headcount.

If the capacity is reached, Trevino migrants would have to be released onto the streets of his city.

“We only have two Non Governmental Organizations, and that is the problem,” the mayor said.

“If the NGOs become overwhelmed, then we won’t have that place to put people, and there’ll wind up in the streets. So that is a thing that that we need to look out for.”

The two Border Patrol holding facilities in Brownsville used to detain and process migrants have also exceeded capacity, Texas Public Radio reported.

“It’s quite concerning because the logistical challenge that we encounter is massive,” US Border Patrol Chief for Rio Grande Valley Sector Gloria Chavez told the Border Report.

On April 29 an official said there were 20,500 migrants in CBP custody across the southern border, according to CNN.

El Paso, the sixth largest in Texas, also declared an emergency over the migrant crisis this past weekend.

El Paso’s top elected official stated its emergency declaration was meant to keep migrants off the streets as shelters are already bursting at the seams.

Pictures obtained by The Post Tuesday showed that has not happened and migrants are camping out on the streets of the city.

The declaration will allow the city to open two larger emergency shelters and officials have warned it may soon start busing migrants out of town to relieve the pressure.

The American Red Cross is also headed to El Paso to help with the migrants — as an outbreak of chicken pox and bed bugs has spread like wildfire among the hundreds who have been sleeping outside.

The city’s health authority urged locals not to panic, saying the general public was not at risk at this time as the measures were confined to specific areas.

“Some of these conditions might just be confined to these congregate settings and it’s not going to be spreading to the rest of the community,” Dr. Hector Ocaranza told local station KTSM.

“If we detect any outbreaks out in the community in a specific location, then we will provide recommendations.”

On Tuesday, President Biden also committed 1,500 active-duty soldiers to help out with logistics at the border.