all eyes on the rio grande valley as
homeland security secretary alejandro
mayorkas visits the region and this
visit comes as the biden administration
prepares to end a covid policy that
turned away migrants at the border our
stephanie jimenez is live along the
border wall in the rio grande valley
with the latest steph the secretary says
they know what they're going to do
coming up so the big question is
what's the plan
okay so the plan involves a few
different things steve one of them is
vaccinating more migrants along the
border the other thing is also adding
more manpower along the border
as it prepares as this administration
prepares to deal with the end of title
42 we should also mention that the
secretary has spent the day along
different parts of the border today
meeting with customs and border
protection agents to try and get a feel
as to what they need should title 42 end
next week now you have to keep in mind
there are several moving parts to this
we will get to that in a moment but
first we want to show you more of
secretary mayorgas's visit
as
as people excuse me the agents say they
need more manpower more equipment to
deal with a possible increase of
migrants coming through the border now
homeland security is saying that as many
as 6 000 people try to come through here
every day but that that number may more
than double here's the thing though we
asked the secretary specifics meaning
how many migrants exactly are
immigration officials prepared to
process
if they come through the border after
title 42 ends and listen to what he said
we
are addressing uh a level of migration
that is um historic
and they are doing an extraordinary job
in managing the current flow
as
the plans that we published
a few weeks ago evidence
what we have done
is not necessarily predict the flow that
we might encounter but rather we have
planned for different scenarios that
could in fact materialize
all right so you just heard the
secretary right there basically there
are no specifics uh as far as homeland
security is concerned it just doesn't
know what's going to happen should title
42 and next week now what it is going to
do is to vaccinate migrants as they come
here across the border and add more than
600 cbp agents and that's the adding of
the manpower that cbp agents had already
asked for now we just described to you
the technical side of this but you have
to remember there's a very human side to
all of this and this is all the people
who live here along the rio grande
valley how do they feel about the
potential for more immigrants to cross
the border well that's what our alicia
barrera has been trying to determine
today and speaking with different
homeowners along the valley she joins us
now in hidalgo with more alicia
good afternoon stephanie well yesterday
we got here the first thing we did we
headed about 15 miles west of where
we're at right now and that's in the
city of penitas it's a small rural area
we talked to property owners there and
then this morning we headed 15 miles
east of where we are now and that's in
the city of donna and we got pretty much
the same feel there both property owners
in both of those cities share with me
that really
the fence is their backyard so they do
admit that traffic when it comes to
undocumented immigrants in these last
two three months has been pretty slow
and now they're really on edge of what
could come monday so just in a matter of
days they are aware that things could
definitely change these property and
business owners say that but that they
do say that a fence is not enough they
do recognize that part we spoke to one
rancher his name is richard guerra
senior he owns several thousand acres
for his cattle business out in roma
texas that's about an hour west of where
we are and while many are focused on the
rights of asylum seekers when it comes
to title 42 guerra says there aren't
enough people fighting for his rights as
a property owner he doesn't want title
42 lifted because he fears his property
which sits on the border would be
continuously damaged by undocumented
immigrants running through his land he
says one mile of game fence can cost him
anywhere around twenty thousand dollars
a lot of landowners like myself
we have common problems you know people
coming across
contaminating their property their
cattle
doing damages to fences by removing
title 42 you're going to add to an
existing burden the total effect we
don't know what the total effect is
going to be like but we know it's not
going to be good
so now they wait they as in property
owners business owners they wait to see
if come monday the biden administration
will fully lift title 42 but coming up
at six we'll hear from organizations who
advocate for asylum seekers and they say
that title 42 must be lifted immediately
live in hidalgo alicia barrera case at
12 news tiffany back to you
alicia thank you and you know myra and
steve the thing is here that you keep
hearing the word if if title 42 were to
end and the reason why is that that may
not happen and that is because there is
a federal lawsuit that is underway we
have 24 states including our own state
of texas suing the federal government
trying to stop it from ending
title 42 next week the judge in that
case says that he is expected to release
his opinion on that sometime before
the title 42 is set to expire so a lot
of people are expecting that decision to
come down sometime next week now here's
the thing
what happens then what is the biden
administration prepared to do if title
42 does remain in place for the
foreseeable future well that's a
question that we ask the secretary and
you're going to get his response when we
see you at six o'clock for now we're
live in the rio grande valley stephanie
jimenez ksat 12 news myra steve
all right thank you stephanie of course
title 42 is a provision of federal law
enacted during the pandemic that allows
people
coming to the u.s who want to seek
asylum they're essentially turned away
because of the threat of communicable
disease so with so much focus on the end
of title 42 at this point in the
pandemic you might have questions about
its beginning when was it first created
how has it upended the u.s immigration
system over the past two years scan the
qr code you see right here to find out
that will take you to a case that
explains episode focused on title 42 and
the policies in place right now in this
country when it comes to someone wanting
to seek asylum you can also find that by
going to ksat.com
explains