A Biden administration plan to require certain migrant families to stay in El Paso, Texas, while awaiting asylum decisions has been abandoned due to local opposition, according to CBS News. The plan, which was part of the broader Family Expedited Removal Management (FERM) program, aimed to provide an alternative to detaining migrant families by implementing daily curfews and GPS monitoring. However, El Paso officials retracted their support when specific details of the plan, including home curfews and ankle monitoring, were disclosed to the public.
Estrella Escobar, a spokesperson for El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, reportedly told CBS News that while the city had agreed to expand the number of hotel rooms for migrants, it never approved of the program's stringent monitoring measures, including home curfews and ankle monitoring. Mayor Leeser confirmed this stance, stating that the city had "never agreed to any program" imposing such restrictions on migrant families.
The proposed plan in El Paso would have limited the movement of migrants to areas near the U.S.-Mexico border, ostensibly to deter illegal crossings. However, local opposition and the city's refusal to support the program have led to its abandonment. This setback puts the Biden administration back to square one in finding a solution for managing migrant families awaiting asylum decisions.
In the context of these policy efforts, new data for September 2023 shows a significant number of encounters at unofficial entry points along the southwest border. The U.S. Border Patrol recorded 218,763 encounters, while Customs and Border Protection (CBP) figures indicate a total of 269,735 encounters for the same period and region. Since May 2023, the Department of Homeland Security, in coordination with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has removed or returned over 300,000 individuals, including more than 45,000 family members. This marks a record number of family member deportations or returns in the last four months compared to any previous full fiscal year.
The Biden administration will now have to reassess its approach to managing migrant families awaiting asylum decisions, as the plan to mandate their stay in El Paso has been scrapped due to local opposition.
