As recently as Thursday, the Democratic Mayor of El Paso, Texas, Oscar Leeser, had refused to declare a state of emergency in his city, even as thousands of illegal migrants flooded the area, with masses of people sleeping on the streets. The mayor quickly walked away after announcing his decision without answering any questions from reporters. But yesterday, less than 48 hours later, Leeser reversed course and declared a state of emergency as the Wednesday deadline for lifting Title 42 loomed. He claimed to have reached the decision following a conference call with federal, state, and local officials. What remains unclear is what he will be able to do with any additional funds and resources that are made available as a result of this declaration. (NY Post)

The mayor of El Paso declared a state of emergency Saturday ahead of Wednesday’s deadline to lift a COVID-era policy that is expected to result in more than 6,000 migrants crossing the border a day into an already overwhelmed city where hundreds are already sleeping on the streets.

“Our asylum seekers are not safe,” said El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser at a specially called press conference to announce the emergency measures. “We have hundreds and hundreds on the street and that’s not the way we treat our people.”

Temperatures have dipped into the 20s in the city, he said, and migrants who have been released into the city are sleeping on downtown streets.

Reading further into Leeser’s remarks, it seems clear that he is still unwilling to acknowledge what the actual problem is. He’s not talking about finding a way to stop the flood of illegals streaming into his city from Mexico. He instead spoke of “treating people with dignity” and working with nonprofit groups to ship the migrants to other parts of the country.

Like so many Democrats who have struggled to address the results of Joe Biden’s disastrous open border policies, El Paso’s Mayor is looking to ignore that aspect of the debate and instead make the migrants “somebody else’s problem” by sending them further into the country. On Wednesday, when Title 42 is lifted, those theories will truly be put to the test. Literally tens of thousands of aspiring illegal migrants are lined up on the other side of the border, waiting for the rules to change so they can break our laws by crossing the border and surrendering to our already overwhelmed immigration officials and demanding asylum.

As I mentioned above, it’s difficult to see what benefit Leeser will gain from this decision aside from avoiding further embarrassment. He already secured six million dollars worth of federal aid to handle this situation and there aren’t many border enforcement officials left who are available to come and help. Also, even if he gets his hands on more federal cash, what can he do with it in the remaining time before the deadline? Every available bed in El Paso is full. You can’t put up more buildings in four days, and people will still be left out in the cold or on buses heading north. (Toward even colder climates.)

The Biden border crisis has been a rolling disaster since the day Joe Biden was sworn into office and began issuing executive orders intended to undo every program put in place by Donald Trump. This week it’s going to shift into an even higher gear. The true tragedy in all of this is that it was entirely avoidable. If Biden’s first moves upon taking office had been to announce tighter border controls, more resources for the Border Patrol, and a “warp speed” effort to finish construction on the border wall, we would still be seeing illegal immigration rates comparable to the ones recorded three or four years ago, if not even less. But now we’re about to be overwhelmed by an invasion of illegals, drug smugglers, and human traffickers in numbers never experienced in the history of the nation. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s impossible to deny that this is exactly what Joe Biden intended all along.