Hundreds Of Migrants Mob Border Bridge, Protest Biden’s Policies

A group of roughly 300 migrants staged a protest Monday at the border in Mexico to decry the Biden administration’s immigration policies, according to Border Report.

The migrants formed a mass protest at the Paso del Norte bridge that leads into El Paso, Texas, partly over barriers to claiming asylum in person in the U.S., according to Border Report. The protest follows two major incidents in the area involving migrants, one in which they previously tried to storm the bridge in even larger numbers.

On March 12, a group of hundreds of migrants attempted to storm the border at the Paso del Norte bridge into the U.S., with many of them citing frustrations with the Biden administration’s entry process via the CBP One phone application. Following that, a fire at a migrant holding facility in Juarez killed roughly 40 people.

Title 42, a Trump-era migrant expulsion order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, will remain in place until May 11 for Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians who cross the border illegally.

The Biden administration does allow migrants from the aforementioned countries to seek an exemption to Title 42 via CBP One. Migrants using the app, however, have reported technical glitches and issues accessing appointments for their exemption interviews.

“I received reports they were making a peaceful manifestation at (PND). If there is no obstruction (to traffic), we won’t do anything,” Juarez, Mexico Mayor Cruz Perez Cuellar said at a Monday morning news conference on Facebook Live, adding that some of the migrants waiting in Mexico are hearing that the U.S. border is open, according to Border Report.

“We try to explain to them the U.S. government does not operate that way,” the mayor added.

Federal authorities have recorded an uptick in illegal migrant encounters in recent years. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 2.3 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2022 and more than 1 million in the first five months of fiscal year 2023.

CBP is monitoring the situation at the bridge, the agency told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“At approximately 9:30 a.m. local time CBP did conduct a Mobile Field Force exercise at PDN which did cause a temporary disruption of traffic,” CBP told the DCNF.

“As a precaution, CBP has deployed barricades to limit vehicular traffic at PDN. Northbound pedestrian traffic is being processed,” CBP added.

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