What will happen when Title 42 is lifted?
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- ABC-7 sat down with and Immigration and Customs Enforcement official to gain more insight into what the potential lifting of Title 42 will mean for El Paso.
According to Mary De Anda-Ybarra, the new field office director for Enforcement and Removal Operations in El Paso, Texas, ERO has always conducted their operations based on Title 8.
"Title 42 does not affect ICE except that we have less people coming into custody because CBP is expelling with Title 42," said De Anda-Ybarra.
That means with the lifting of Title 42, ICE will have more people coming into custody.
"I'll be honest with you, I don't feel like I have enough manpower now. CBP has been provided a lot of resources. ERO has not received any new full time employees for at least five years. And we are very shorthanded right now, not just in El Paso, but nationwide," said De Anda-Ybarra. "We have a very limited number of detailers from other offices. I think I have maybe 11 people that have been assigned to me from other offices and and so we are having to use a lot of internal staff for extra duties."
Regardless, De Anda-Ybarra said El Paso's ERO will be reviewing cases after migrants are processed by Customs and Border Protection, and in cases where asylum seekers are found legally sufficient, ERO will find space for them in a detention facility either locally or elsewhere. But De Anda-Ybarra said there are plenty of migrants who are not processed.
"My understanding of the individuals that are around Sacred Heart is that they have not been encountered," said De Anda-Ybarra. "[Border Patrol] have not arrested them or they have not turned themselves in. So if they if that doesn't happen, where they turn themselves in or they get arrested, then they do not get processed. So they may be seeking asylum, but if they are not going through the process to initiate that process, then they can't be removed because we have to go through their due process."
