El Paso Official Says Illegal Aliens ‘Running Into Our Backyards,’ Scaring the Community

The U.S. military stops people from crossing into El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Dec. 20, 2022. Christian Chavez/AP Photo

A top official in El Paso, Texas, has called the situation at the southern border “frightening” and said the local community is not accustomed to having so many illegal aliens in the city.

El Paso City Council member Claudia Rodriguez made the comments in an interview with Fox News on Dec. 28, shortly after the Supreme Court voted to allow the Title 42 immigration policy to remain in place.

Rodriguez took aim at the Biden administration’s open border policies amid an influx of illegal aliens and noted the current solutions put in place by the federal government to manage the crisis are simply not sustainable.

“It’s frightening what’s happening in El Paso, not only for the community, because we’re not used to this,” Rodriguez said. “Even though we are a border city, we’re not used to this type of environment where we just see people running across our freeways and running into our backyards. It’s very scary. People are sleeping on our streets. It’s completely out of the normal and, again, there is no plan moving forward.”

“The fact that we have a tent city that’s being built in El Paso, a shelter—a huge shelter—to house all these migrants, is that going be the solution moving forward? Are we going to be funding shelters? ... What comes after that?” Rodriguez said.

Venezuelan migrants gesture as they reach the U.S. border fence to turn themselves in to the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico in El Paso, Texas, on Sept. 22, 2022. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Giant Tent for Illegal Aliens

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Landon Hutchens confirmed in a statement to CNN that a soft-sided tent facility is being erected in El Paso to accommodate the growing number of illegal aliens.

According to Hutchens, the facility “will be used by U.S. Border Patrol El Paso Sector to provide additional migrant processing capabilities, with a capacity to hold approximately 1,000 migrants while they are processed in accordance with U.S. immigration law.”

The spokesperson added that the tent facility, part of the Biden administration’s response to the influx of illegal immigrants, will likely be up and running starting in January.

El Paso has a population of roughly 670,000 people.

Fox News predicts that once Title 42 is lifted, there could be up to 14,000 illegal aliens crossing the southern border every day, amounting to roughly 5.1 million every year.

Rodriguez noted that the city is currently overwhelmed with illegal aliens sleeping on the streets or being housed in hotels and churches, while border officials are working hard to try and push migrants to ports of entry along the border, as opposed to crossing illegally.

Illegal immigrants receive donated clothing outside a shelter at the Sacred Heart Church in El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 17, 2022. John Moore/Getty Images

Thousands of Illegal Aliens Waiting at Border

“That is why now I’m calling on President Biden to come to El Paso and look at our city and tell us what the solution moving forward is, because this right here is unsustainable,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t see this really going anywhere other than more shelter, more shelter, more shelter, but really it’s not securing our border.”

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser warned on Dec. 20 that roughly 20,000 migrants have piled up at the southern border and are waiting for Title 42 to end so that they can attempt to enter the city. More have arrived since then despite freezing temperatures.

Others have already crossed the border and have been released into the city.

For now, Title 42—which was implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the Trump administration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic—remains in limbo after being allowed to remain in effect while legal disputes play out.

The Biden administration has said it will comply with the order while it prepares for the Supreme Court’s review.

In a statement on Dec. 27, the White House said that it is also “advancing preparations to manage the border in a secure, orderly, and humane way when Title 42 eventually lifts and will continue expanding legal pathways for immigration,” despite border resources currently being stretched.