Over two million unauthorized migrants crossed the southern border in 2020, not counting those who were not detained or crossed unnoticed, as a result of the steps taken against illegal immigration.
The Biden administration said on May 23 that it will no longer enforce Title 42, a law enacted during the coronavirus outbreak that authorized border authorities to turn away illegal immigrants on the basis that they may introduce the virus into the nation.
McLaughlin predicted that if Title 42 is repealed, his community will see a 75 percent to 100 percent rise in the number of illegal immigrants with whom it must cope.
“We’ve been dealing with this crisis for the last year,” he said, alluding to the enormous influx of illegal immigrants into the United States since President Joe Biden’s election.
McLaughlin said he’s at a loss for words when it comes to describing the next stage of America’s illegal immigration dilemma.
“What’s coming on the 23rd of May won’t even be describable,” the mayor said. “I mean, you’re talking about thousands of people that are going to hit that border, that are just waiting to cross the border.
“And there’s nobody prepared down here for it. The federal government’s not prepared for it. Thank God Governor Abbott is trying to get prepared for it, but it’s going to be just the wild, wild west and crazy down here,” he said.
Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, outlined a variety of steps on Wednesday to help his state deal with the influx of migrants, including the use of drones and “charter buses and flights to transport migrants who have been processed and released from federal custody to Washington, D.C.”
Based on what he has seen the federal government do in the past, McLaughlin believes that even if Uvalde is not directly on the border, it will be swamped in the coming wave.
“They’ll get so overwhelmed at the border, they’ll pull all their Border Patrol agents out of the field. They’ll make them processors. They’ll be doing paperwork, and they’ll say, ‘Oh we’re over capacity,’ and they’ll start shipping them to towns like Uvalde,” he said.
The mayor stated that the federal government will “dump them” and that “then we have to deal with them.”
According to McLaughlin, the Biden administration is to blame for the problem, and federal authorities are exacerbating it by denying localities the authority to cope with the consequences of the federal government’s actions.
“The federal government ties your hands at every turn,” he said.
According to Fox News, the mayor called the Biden administration’s immigration strategy “very much a clown show” last year.
“It’s just — it is just getting crazier and crazier and crazier and these — these ‘peaceful’ immigrants, illegal immigrants, they keep talking about, are getting more and more aggressive with landowners. They’re doing more destruction of property. They’re tearing things up. Trashing ranch houses, trashing vehicles,” In September, McLaughlin told presenter Tucker Carlson.
”And, you know, you can complain all you want, but this is — this administration turns a blind eye to it. This is such a failed administration and a failed president, it’s terrible,” he said then.
To put everything into context:
Except for the four largest cities in the United States, that amount coming exceeds the population of any other city in the country. One of Biden’s directives was to repeal Title 42, which barred Covid positive migrants from entering the country, and which is set to take effect in May.
At that time, an estimated 18,000 migrants a day are expected, with only a small percentage of those being screened and even fewer being denied entry.
At that rate, every three to four months, the equivalent of a new city the size of all but the largest 30 cities in the United States will be added. It would be a city comparable to Oakland, Minneapolis, Raleigh, Kansas City, or New Orleans in size.
It would be a city populated with people who speak little or no English, have no job, and little education, but who have been promised housing, health care, food, legal support, and a variety of other types of assistance by the US government.