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WASHINGTON: US border patrol and several states have found themselves overwhelmed lately, lacking resources to manage the thousands of migrants arriving from Mexico every day – a crisis that has exposed President Joe Biden to intense attacks from his Republican opponents.
Border officials have in recent weeks counted about 10,000 daily crossings – an uptick from preceding months, which had already seen migrants arrive at an accelerating clip.
There were more than 2.4 million migrant interceptions via land in the year from October 2022 to September 2023.
On Tuesday, authorities closed railroads at Eagle Pass and El Paso, Texas due to a “resurgence” of undocumented migrants entering the United States via freight trains.
Border crossings by car have been suspended at Eagle Pass since early December, as have entry points in California and Arizona, with border police saying they had to move personnel away from those checkpoints to focus on processing irregular entries.
Accusing Biden of “deliberate inaction” on the border issue, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott this week approved a controversial law criminalising illegal entry into his state.
Abbott, a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, hosted a signing ceremony in front of a section of border wall in the city of Brownsville, a nod to the former president’s flagship project and intense 2024 anti-immigration platform.
The law, set to go into effect in March, makes it a crime to illegally enter Texas from a foreign country, punishable by six months in prison – or up to 20 years, in the case of repeat offenders.
It gives Texas state law enforcement the ability to arrest migrants and deport them to Mexico – a power normally reserved for federal authorities.
In response, several human rights organisations, including the influential ACLU, immediately filed lawsuits challenging the Texas law’s constitutionality.
Even political allies in border states have taken Biden to task over migration, with Arizona’s Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs saying “the federal government is refusing to do its job to secure our border and keep our communities safe.”
Earlier this month, Hobbs announced she would send Arizona National Guard troops to the border to help pick up some of the slack.
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