Officials in Tucson are bracing for what they believe will be a drastic rise in the migrant population. | Raivis Razgals/Unsplash
Officials in Tucson are bracing for what they believe will be a drastic rise in the migrant population. | Raivis Razgals/Unsplash
As President Joe Biden appears ready to lift Title 42, Tucson is preparing for what is sure to be an influx of migrants following the decision.
This rise will be significant once Title 42 is lifted, according to Steve Kozachik, a Tucson city council member. "We could be seeing so, we could be seeing an increase from say 200 to 300 people a day to 700 to 800 people a day," he said.
He continued, "The capacity simply is outstripped by the quantity coming in overnight. That will force necessarily Border Patrol having to make some hard decisions about whether they just do street releases."
Kozachik is concerned about the logistical issues of handling that many incoming people. "You can't drive up to an agency and say, 'I've got 150 people on the bus. Are you ready for them?'" he said. "You got to have more advance notice, more than 24 hours notice."
Local law experts are also concerned about the impact. Maurice "Mo" Goldman, a Tucson immigration lawyer, believes that a better route of action would be to address the existing backlog of immigrant cases first, then figure out how to take in more. Goldman has seen it all when it comes to immigration in the area and the legal issues that surround it.
"If we're going to just keep piling more and more applications in and not deal with all the people who have been here, it's just going to be a mess and continue to be a mess for decades," he said.
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