Texas Governor Greg Abbott met with local and state agencies at Eagle Pass on Monday, the day Title 42 was scheduled to be lifted.

On Friday, a federal judge blocked a Biden administration plan to lift Title 42, a public health policy from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tied to the deportation of migrant asylum-seekers.

The governor held a press conference after his meeting with border security, law enforcement and local leaders.

Abbott detailed several strategies implemented or expanded to “thwart” efforts by Mexican drug cartels to smuggle migrants across the US-Mexico border.

One strategy is to deploy additional barriers like barbed wire to make it harder to cross into Texas, “covering every inch of the border” except for federal or private property, Abbott said.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott held a border security briefing and press conference to discuss Texas’ response to securing the border Monday at Eagle Pass. The governor was joined by Texas DPS Director Steve McCraw and Texas Military Department Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer.

The idea is to evacuate migrants from the Rio Grande to ports of entry.

Abbott said local law enforcement behind these barriers will continue to make arrests “to send the message that people crossing between entry points, you are likely to be arrested and will enter through intrusion”.

The governor also pledged to increase the number of bus rides with voluntary border-processed migrants to Washington DC as a symbol of the Biden administration’s “open border policies.”

To date, 45 buses have transported migrants to the nation’s capital, he said.

Meanwhile, communities like Laredo have become “spillover towns” for other border towns like Del Rio, Eagle Pass, and even Yuma, Arizona.

Faith-based shelters in Laredo continue to prepare for any possible push at their border or anywhere along the US-Mexico border while caring for thousands of undocumented migrants who have entered the United States despite the title 42 still in place.

NBC 5 caught up with a young mother at a shelter in Laredo on Monday.

She said her name was Tania. She comes from Honduras.

She sat quietly cradling her 8-month-old daughter while waiting for a bus ride to Corpus Christi to reunite with a cousin.

Tears flowed as she explained how difficult it was for her and others to leave their home country.

“We are suffering, risking the lives of our children,” she said in Spanish. “We are not bad people.”

Tania said she had no choice but to leave after her family received constant threats from local gangs.

There are scars on her face and neck, she says, from her struggle with people who almost kidnapped her daughter in Mexico.

Tania says she moved illegally from Piedras Negras, Mexico to Eagle, Pass, Texas.

Although Title 42 is still in place, there are exceptions and immigration policies that have allowed thousands of undocumented migrants to enter the country to face an immigration judge.

Tania says she just explained her situation and was allowed in. She is considering seeking asylum given the threats in Honduras and the attempted kidnapping in Mexico.

Many migrants are bused to processing centers in Laredo from towns with a much higher number of illegal crossings to the south and north.

Laredo, a town with far fewer illegal crossings than other border towns, is in a unique situation.

“The reason for that is that Nuevo Laredo is basically run by cartels,” said Joe Barron, director of the nonprofit Laredo Holding Institute.

According to local law enforcement, drug cartels have taken control of border crossings in Nuevo Laredo.

Migrants cannot cross without “using their services,” Laredo’s DPS sergeant said. Eric Estrada.

If migrants try to cross the Rio Grande on their own, the cartels usually have members on the American side who will find them and punish them, he said.

Migrants generally avoid Nuevo Laredo, Barron added.

Barron was part of a virtual conference call Monday with 9 partner shelters across the border in Nuevo Laredo where it was revealed that approximately 3,000 Haitian migrants were able to enter Nuevo Laredo without any issues from day to day. next day.

“It’s never happened before,” said a stunned Barron.

The new group joins about 5,000 migrants who have been waiting in overcrowded Mexican camps for up to two years.

Barron fears they will become so frustrated that they rush to the border as Haitian migrants did in Del Rio in 2021 by setting up a makeshift camp under the international bridge.

When asked what he hopes for and fears in the days and weeks to come, Barron replied:

“The greatest hope is that it will be controlled chaos. The biggest fear is that all hell will break loose.

Migrants are tested for COVID-19 and offered a COVID vaccine at the shelter, Barrón said.

The governor said he had yet to hear of President Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, who was tasked with addressing the root causes of migration.

Abbott did not respond to a reporter’s repeated question about whether having barbed wire as a deterrent to migrants is cruel, but DPS Director Steve McGraw did. volunteered to respond at the end of the press conference by saying, “The wire is not cruel, the cartels are cruel and what they do to women and children.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott discusses the state’s ongoing response to securing the border.