The mayor of El Paso, Texas, noted Saturday that the growing flow of migrants seeking asylum in the United States brought this border town to a ‘tipping point’ which exceeded the capacity of local shelters.

“The City of El Paso only has a limited amount of resources, and we have arrived (…) We are now at a turning point”said Mayor Oscar Lizer.

Mayor at a press conference He noted that the city currently receives an average of 2,000 migrants daily. mostly from Venezuela, local channel KTSM reports.

Leeser noted that until Saturday, government Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies They held about 6,500 migrants in their facilities. and another 2,000 people on the Mexican side were waiting to cross the border checkpoint.

The situation forced local authorities to open new hostel in the northeast of the city, in addition to renting five buses that went to New York, Chicago and Denver (Colorado) this Saturday.

According to Leeser, only 1% of migrants arriving in El Paso do so to stay and that the vast majority intend to move to larger cities.

At the press conference, local officials stressed that all migrants who boarded the buses They did so voluntarily and to a destination of their choice.. The Republican governors of Texas and Florida have been criticized for sending migrants to cities considered liberal, such as New York and Sacramento.

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Leeser of the Democratic Party said this about 66% of those crossing the border are single men. 32% are family units and 2% are unaccompanied minors.

The influx of asylum seekers, mostly Venezuelans, is part of a larger wave of migrants who have traveled dangerous routes on buses and freight trains to Mexican border towns near San Diego, California, and Texas cities. Eagle Pass and El Paso.

The number of migrants has fallen sharply in recent months, and the recent surge has caused a new wave of political attacks on US President Joe Biden, Ahead of the 2024 election, Lizer said Biden has been a good partner, but added that the overall U.S. immigration system is broken.

“I think it is very important to note that “We have a broken immigration system.”, said. “It’s the same thing over and over again.”

(according to information from EFE and Reuters)