MediterraneanGrocery Wholesalers in El Paso, TX

El Paso, Texas will declare a new state of emergency on Monday as border facilities have reached capacity due to migrants flooding in from Mexico before Title 42 expires on May 11.

Mayor Oscar Leeser warned that his border city could buckle under the pressure of thousands of migrants seeking aid, with more expected to come as the US ends the federal pandemic-era policy which has allowed officials to kick millions of people back to Mexico.

Leeser said the declaration, which would likely last 30 days, will call on additional US government aid to provide shelters for the asylum seekers, as well as security for the whole community.

The city has already received $22.5 million from the feds.

“The reason we’re declaring a state of emergency is to make sure we can stand up and prepare for May 11,” Leeser said during a news conference Sunday. “To make sure we have public shelters, public housing… and two schools in place.”

This will be the second time in six months that an emergency has been declared in the beleaguered city, with recent local data showing more than 1,000 people a day are arriving at the border.

Officials predict 10,000 to 12,000 migrants will try to seek asylum at the border on May 11, with the volume expected to rise, Leeser said.

Leeser, who has long bemoaned the crisis at the US-Mexico border, added that El Paso would not be providing permanent homes to the migrants, and that the shelters would be temporary as the city helps asylum seekers reach their intended destination.

El Paso has made headlines over its busing program — with thousands of migrants sent to the north, including New York City, over the past year — much to the headache of Mayor Eric Adams, who condemned the program.

US Customs and Border Protection said that as of Saturday, more than 20,500 migrants were in custody along the southern border, with nearly 7,000 caught in the Rio Grande Valley sector alone.

There have been about 7,000 daily encounters in late April, with CBP officials warning that the number will rise in the coming weeks.

Along with the need for aid, Leeser called on the government to make serious changes to America’s immigration and border laws to curb the flood of migrants coming though the southern border.

“There’s no endgame to this, and we can’t continue as a city or as a country without the federal government changing federal laws.,” Leeser said. “The process right now is broken and it has not been fixed for many, many years.”

El Paso’s declaration comes as the border town of Brownsville, Texas, issued its own emergency, with Border Patrol Chief for the Rio Grande Valley Sector Gloria Chavez saying the city has seen over 15,000 Venezuelans arriving in the last eight days, CNN reports.

Like Leeser, Brownsville commissioner for District 1 Nurith Galonsky Pizana said the city will do its best to help the migrants transition through the town to reach their intended destination.

“These migrants who are making their way through Brownsville, they are not here to stay,” Galonsky Pizana said earlier this week. “They have a final destination outside of Brownsville, and we will manage this with due process as these individuals seek asylum.”

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Although it seems counterintuitive for the migrants to try and cross the border illegally or seek asylum while Title 42 is still in place, it likely comes from a fear that it’ll be harder to get into the US once the policy expires.

With Title 42 gone, the US will revert to its decades-old protocols that were set up during mass migration in the US, including legal ramifications for people who repeatedly try to cross illegally.

Slender-tailed meerkat named "Pink" also reported missing

EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A colony of more than a dozen prairie dogs disappeared from the El Paso Zoo in 2021. According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection report, it wasn’t discovered until they failed to emerge in the Spring of 2022.

The information was part of an open-source dataset detected by Stanford University’s Big Local News and the Data Liberation Project, which tracks animal-care inspections across the United States.

The USDA report from January 2023 indicates that an entire colony of black-tailed prairie dogs went missing around the same time as a 7-year-old slender-tailed meerkat named “Pink.”

The Zoo staff became aware the 14 prairie dogs were missing in March when they failed to appear from underground at the end of the colder season. Staff last reported seeing the prairie dogs before going underground on September 26, 2021. Zoo staff reportedly began searching for them, using camera equipment to explore the tunnels and burrows and finally excavating the underground passages.

Joe Montisano, Director of the El Paso Zoo, tells KTSM soldiers from Fort Bliss came to the Zoo and excavated the area by hand, “there are no bones, there’s no hair. So they disappeared.”

According to the report, no tunnels were noted to breach the exhibit enclosure, and no opening was found in the exhibit walls that would have allowed the prairie dogs to escape. None of the animals or their carcasses were found.

“We’ve done preventative measures, and now we’ll restock the exhibit. It is a mystery. It’s one of our zoo mysteries. One of our few zoo mysteries; we don’t have many,” Montisano said.

Zoo staff reported a feral cat had been seen around the exhibit around the time of the prairie dog’s disappearance, and the area is mostly uncovered. The report stated the zoo no longer uses the enclosure for any animals, and as of January 2023, they have not obtained additional prairie dogs for the collection.

The same USDA report states that a 7-year-old female slender-tailed meerkat named “Pink” was also reported missing from her enclosure on October 22, 2021. Pink was the only missing meerkat, and the remaining three in the exhibit were all accounted for. A search of the area and excavation of the enclosure proved fruitless, and Pink was never located. The remaining meerkats were moved out of the enclosure.

“Failure the provide enclosures that keep zoo animals contained and safe, and which are built to prevent entry of other animals from coming over or under walls or fences of the primary enclosure can lead to animal injury, escapes, and predation events,” the USDA report states. “The license must ensure that housing facilities are constructed in a manner and of such material and strength as appropriate for the animals involved; they must be sound and maintained in good repair to protect the animals from injury and to contain the animals. Enclosures should not only prevent zoo animal escapes but also effectively prevent predator access,” the report concludes.

The USDA gave the El Paso Zoo a deadline of February 20, 2023, to correct deficiencies in the enclosures to ensure none of the animals could escape and prevent outside predators from entering the enclosures.

On Monday, the USDA was on-site at the El Paso Zoo to inspect and approve exhibit improvements.

Montisano says they plan on repopulating the enclosure in the next 30 days, pending the outcome of a USDA inspection of enclosure upgrades.

The Americas baseball team has been steady and consistent all season and that continued in the bi-district round of the Class 6A playoffs, which wrapped up Saturday.

The Trailblazers, who are ranked No. 18 in the state by txhighschoolbaseball.com, defeated Midland Legacy in two games, 8-5 and 11-1.

Americas earned its fifth bi-district championship under the guidance of coach Jesse Munoz and its third straight.

"We have a resilient team, a team that has some swagger," Munoz said. "We have a veteran team and our goal is to get to Round Rock and the state tournament."

Americas defeated Midland Legacy, 8-5, in the opener of the best-of-3 series on Thursday in Midland. Adrian Quintana had an RBI double for the Trailblazers, Gabe Bernal tripled in a run and Santana Hernandez drove in a run to help lead Americas.

On Saturday in the 11-1 series-clinching win, the Trailblazers got two home runs from Hernandez and one from Quintana to lead the way. One of Hernandez' homers was a grand slam. Senior right-hander and Baylor signee, Stephen Sepulveda allowed one run in five innings.

"We just have to keep hitting the ball well, we have to keep working and stay focused," Hernandez said. "We work hard and we'll give it our best effort in the next round."

Americas will face perennial power Southlake Carroll next weekend. The Dragons are coached by El Paso's Larry Vucan. Americas edged the Dragons, 2-1, earlier in the season.

"We respect Southlake Carroll, they have a good team and are well coached," Sepulveda said. "We have a good team as well and we have a great coach in Jesse Munoz. We'll give it our best effort and we're excited about the next round of the playoffs."

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Tornillo is headed to the area round after sweeping Lamesa on Friday night in Van Horn. The Coyotes won the first game, 4-1, and won the second game, 14-7. Noe Moreno and Derek Sanchez were the winning pitchers for the Coyotes.

More: Baseball look aheadEl Paso players, teams to watch as UIL baseball playoffs begin

Felix F. Chavez can be reached at [email protected]; @Fchavezeptimes on Twitter

Asylum-seekers wait on U.S. soil in ever-growing numbers several days before end of title 42

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – They call it “La Villita” (The Little Village) and it’s growing by the hour as more asylum-seekers stream toward the border wall in El Paso.

On late Friday morning, the migrants had set up dozens of makeshift tents on U.S. territory south of the wall’s Gate 40. More than 100 migrants could be seen standing by the gate, waiting for the Border Patrol to let them in and transport them to processing centers.

Some migrants interviewed by Border Report as they walked back to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande said agents told them El Paso processing centers were full. The agents reportedly told them to wait for space to become available.

“They said they don’t have any room and that they are releasing people so they can pick us up,” said Direy Mancilla, a Colombian asylum seeker who arrived in Juarez on Thursday with her husband and their 14-month-old daughter.

Honduran Victor Mejia said he was told the processing centers were “collapsed” due to the high number of migrants who crossed the border days prior to the termination of Title 42 public health migrant expulsions.

“We need food, we need water, we need medication and protection,” the asylum-seeker said after returning to Mexico. “We are sleeping on the dirt. Children are sick and their parents are becoming sick, too. Please help us here at Gate 40.”

The City of El Paso’s online migrant dashboard on Thursday reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had 4,338 migrants in custody. That’s close to all-time high numbers. The dashboard works with CBP-provided data.

In a statement to Border Report and KTSM, federal officials said they would not comment on statements migrants make to the news media. The Border Patrol is averaging 1,400 daily migrant encounters in the El Paso sector, which is far fewer than the 2,500 they were encountering in early October.

An agency spokesman told KTSM the processing centers were at capacity on Friday, but that numbers fluctuate throughout the day.

“The El Paso Sector is currently leading the nation with over 265,000 encounters this fiscal year 2023,” the agency said. “As the migrant influx continues, it is not uncommon for migrants to congregate in an area while awaiting transportation for processing. As the temperatures rise, migrants are also proactively creating temporary shelters to provide some type of relief from the sun and the elements.”

In addition to processing asylum-seekers, border agents are concentrating on apprehending migrants who try to evade capture by getting over the border wall and running into residential areas near the border. Those numbers are on the rise in El Paso, with migrants trying to flee into residential areas near the border.

CBP is using both Title 42 public health expulsions and Title 8 removals on migrants deemed not to have a legal basis to remain in the U.S. “We are however, focusing our efforts on applying consequences to those who enter the country illegally by processing migrants under our expedited removal immigration processing pathways under Title 8, including barring individuals for five years from the country, if found not to have a legal basis to remain in the U.S.,” the statement said.

The agency has two large working processing facilities (the Central Processing Center near Hondo Pass Drive and a new soft-sided facility near Chaparral, New Mexico). A third large-scale facility is being built in far Northeast El Paso near the soft-sided facility.

New migrants carrying backpacks, gym bags and plastic grocery bags with snacks and water arrived at the Rio Grande near Gate 40 literally every few minutes on Friday morning.

They crossed stagnant, foul-smelling foot-tall river water and walked toward the wall in a section of barbwire fence that has been cut off. Several families and groups of men were recorded as they set up makeshift tents to protect themselves against 80-degree heat.

Angela, a Venezuelan mother, expressed frustration at the slow pace of asylum processing. She left her homeland several months ago with her husband and five children, including one that wears a catheter due to a cystostomy and one with asthma. In addition, one of her little girls got sick in Juarez.

“She has a bad cold. She had fever,” the mom said. “We arrived here on Sunday night and cannot wait to be let across. […] As soon as they open the doors again, we want to cross.”

Angela said she would miss the family’s two dogs because she was told they could not come into the U.S.

Mejia, the Honduran, said the situation developing on Friday morning would no doubt escalate in the coming days. “You’re going to see thousands of people here in a few days,” he said.

EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14/CBS4) — A large group of migrants was seen on the United States' side of the border along the Border Highway in El Paso's Lower Valley Friday.

Our crew at the scene said Border Patrol agents were seen along the Border Highway near Padres Drive.

Texas National Guardsmen were also there.

Migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border off of the Border Highway near Padres Drive in El Paso on May 5, 2023. (KFOX14/CBS4)

First responders were seen assisting some migrants, according to our crew at the scene.

Migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border off of the Border Highway near Padres on May 5, 2023. (KFOX14/CBS4)

A spokesperson for Border Patrol sent the following statement about the large group:

The United States Border Patrol in the El Paso Sector is currently leading the nation with over 265,000 encounters this fiscal year 2023. Since April 1, El Paso Sector has averaged almost 1,400 migrant encounters a day, and at our peak, we averaged over 2,500 migrant encounters early this FY2023. As the migrant influx continues, it is not uncommon for migrants to congregate in an area while awaiting transportation for processing. As the temperatures rise, migrants are also proactively creating temporary shelters to provide some type of relieve from the sun and the elements.

Currently, the El Paso Sector is seeing an increased number of migrants evading arrest in the El Paso proper area, therefore, agents are focusing efforts on those migrants evading arrest before fleeing into the residential areas near the border.

El Paso Sector processes every migrant that comes into our custody and continues to work closely with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) for detention space; with Non-Government Organizations (NGO) and the County of El Paso to assist us with decompression efforts for our processing facilities. El Paso Sector transports processed migrants to these facilities when operationally feasible.

CBP continues to expel migrants under Title 42 authority, and those who cannot be expelled under Title 42 and who do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States are placed in removal proceedings under the authority of Title 8. We are however, focusing our efforts on applying consequences to those who enter the country illegally by processing migrants under our Expedited Removal immigration processing pathways under Title 8, including barring individuals for five years from the country, if found not to have a legal basis to remain in the U.S.

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