The Republican-run state of Utah is prepping for an expected migrant surge after the end of Title 42, a public health order invoked by the Trump administration to expel certain migrants, according to KSL.com.
Utah’s director of Immigration & New American Integration Natalie El-Deiry said the state has a limited system in place to receive migrants who crossed the southern border, where many Border Patrol processing centers are already over capacity, according to KSL. Title 42 is set to end May 11, when a migrant surge is expected at the U.S.-Mexico border. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Guatemala Braces For Impact, Says It Won’t Be A Haven For Illegal Immigrants As Trump-Era Policy Ends)
“What we do know is that any surge that we would see definitely puts a strain on local housing, social services and schools,” El-Deiry said. “Those resources are pretty limited overall, but there is some capacity to serve those who would require that assistance. … So we would kind of lean on that system that has already been established, and then monitor closely from there to see if there’s additional support or resources that are needed.”
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Utah has more than 12,000 pending asylum cases, El-Deiry said. The majority of migrants are coming to Utah to reunite with family members, sponsors or faith groups.
“Those are cases over the past several years. It takes several years to adjudicate those cases,” she said. “So if they have a credible fear for asylum and they filed for asylum, those are individuals who have kind of set down roots while their cases are being heard. They have work authorization, they’re largely getting integrated into the community.”
The looming migrant surge is expected to hit Salt Lake, Utah and Weber counties, according to KSL.
“It feels like it would be manageable, but I think one of the challenges is that we just don’t have a good assessment on the actual numbers that would move to the interior to states like Utah,” El-Deiry said. “Really, it’s determined by individuals at the southern border as they’re released, right? They declare where they have a sponsor or where they would choose to go into the interior. We know that people generally have chosen other states with higher populations of certain immigrant communities … but that’s not to say that couldn’t change with the lifting of Title 42.”
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