>>> The supreme court could
decide as soon as today if the
trump era immigration policy
known as title 42 will remain in
place.
That policy enacted as a public
health measure during the
covid-19 pandemic allows the
federal government to send
migrants back to Mexico to await
their asylum proceedings.
Right now officials say there
are 22,000 people sleeping at
various border towns in Mexico
waiting for a decision.
The Texas National Guard
announced last night its built
two miles of fencing at its
border with Mexico and the el
Paso area and plans to continue
to build more.
Rosa flores is joining me now
from El Paso.
Rosa, what are you seeing this
morning?
>> Reporter: Jessica, good
morning.
There's a lot of pain and
desperation here.
Let me show you around while I
tell you what's going on.
We're just outside a church that
serves as a shelter overnight,
but capacity is about 120, 130,
so a lot of people end up having
to sleep on the street because
once capacity -- once the church
fills up, then there is no more
capacity for more.
Now, a lot of these migrants say
that they have either
desperately waited in Mexico and
got tired because title 42 was
never lifted and or they decided
to just simply cross over
illegally because they felt that
they couldn't do anything else.
They were so desperate.
Now, as you look around you'll
see that there are also a lot of
children here.
Those are some of the more
desperate and heartbreaking
stories that we've been hearing
out here, just from mothers who
say that their child will ask
them for food, their child will
ask them for something warm and
these mothers don't have
anything to provide.
They will ask them for a
bathroom.
There are no facilities around
here.
Now, these scenes are also
duplicated on the Mexican side.
Jessica, like you mentioned,
we've learned that about 22,000
migrants are waiting in at least
three northern Mexican cities,
that's across the river from the
Rio grande valley in south Texas
and tee a Tijuana near San
Diego.
There are officials living
either on the streets and in
camps and, again, those are the
ones who have decided to wait
for title 42 to lift.
There are many who are not
waiting, those are the ones you
see around here, those decided
to either turn themselves into
authorities or to enter the U.S.
Illegally.
>> Rosa flores for us in el
Paso, Texas.
Thank you so much for that
reporting, Rosa.
So far the Biden administration
has not laid out any kind of
formal plan for this surge of
migrants.
Joining me now is Seung min Kim
white house reporter for the
associated press.
Great to see you.
Biden is heading out for an end
of the year vacation and will be
gone until the new year.
What happens if the supreme
court makes this decision today
or in the next few days?
>> So we have been asking and
the white house has been asked
repeatedly what is your plan
once title 42 lifts?
We thought this was going to
happen last week, obviously
there has been a delay put in
place by the supreme court, but
as you said a ruling could come
as early as today, any day now.
What the white house has laid
out is that for now they are
surging resources to the border
to the limited capacity they can
have, they have more processing
coordinators.
Right now earlier this month
Karine jean-pierre the white
house press secretary gave us a
figure that 23,000 border patrol
agents were down at the southern
border working to deal with this
impending crisis but they
haven't really laid out a
comprehensive strategy for what
they will do once title 42
lifts.
I have talked to democratic
senators who are not pleased
with how the administration has
been handling this.
I talked with mark Kelly, the
democratic senator from Arizona,
who is clearly seeing the impact
of this -- of this situation in
his home state and he said the
administration hasn't laid out a
clear enough plan for me, and
that is the pressure that the
Biden administration is seeing
right now from members of its
own party.
>> Immigration is an issue
that's vexed congress for
decades.
They have not been able to get
this done, despite many --
several attempts.
At the end of the year there was
another attempt from independent
senator Kyrsten Sinema and
Republican senator Thom Tillis.
We know that the democratic whip
dick Durbin had wanted to do
something on immigration.
Where does this go from here
because just a reminder to
everyone the Democrats will lose
the house in January when
Republicans take over.
How do you see this playing out
in congress if at all?
>> It doesn't go too far from
where things were left off and
we know that Republicans are
coming in and taking the house
majority in just a matter of
days and that is a party that
has not seen or not shown a lot
of interest in doing a
comprehensive immigration fix
like the types that senator
Sinema and Tillis were talking
about, like the types of changes
that had been discussed in
Washington for decades now but
congress has really struggled to
get there.
You do see how, you know, the
white house's hands are so tied
by congress, even when they are
talking about the title 42
situation, you know, when you
ask the white house about title
42 and the Republican
criticisms -- or the criticisms
from Republicans about the Biden
administration's border policy,
they said, well, congress hasn't
fixed this problem, congress for
decades could have done
something to reform the system
both on the security side and on
the legal immigration side, the
illegal immigration side and
they've done nothing.
Also remember the white house
was also pushing heavily for
congress to send them more
funding to deal directly with
this crisis and they didn't get
all that money that they wanted
in this latest round of spending
talks.
So that's making it even tougher
tore them.
>> Even harder.
Yeah.