Judge prevents Texas soldiers from stopping migrant transports

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – A federal judge on Tuesday barred Texas from allowing state soldiers to stop vehicles carrying migrants on the grounds that they could spread COVID-19 amid concerns and new cases increase along the US-Mexico border.

The temporary order by US District Judge Kathleen Cardone of El Paso is at least a short-term victory for the Biden administration, which had warned that Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s plan would create more problems. amid high levels of summer border crossings in Texas, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley, which one US official called “the epicenter of the current wave”.

Sign of growing tension, local officials pushing back Abbott’s harsh immigration actions imprison border workers and build a new barrier declared a local state of disaster this week as COVID-19 cases increase and the capacity of migrant shelters is strained.

Cardone said Abbott’s directive would “exacerbate the spread of COVID-19”. She’s scheduled another hearing for next week.

Abbott’s office did not immediately comment on the decision.

Like in Texas, the Biden administration is also concerned about the much more contagious delta variant, as large numbers of non-citizens continue to arrive at the southern Texas border. On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention renewed emergency powers that allow federal authorities to deport families at the border on the grounds that they are preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

But in suing Texas, the Justice Department accused Abbott of potentially exacerbating the spread of COVID-19, saying in court records that hampering the transfer of migrants would prolong the detention of unaccompanied children in facilities ” increasingly overcrowded ”.

Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez, a Democrat who is the highest elected official in the largest county in the Rio Grande Valley, said on Tuesday that about 8% of migrants tested for COVID-19 were generally positive. He said that number was now 16%, which roughly matches Texas’ overall positivity rate of 17%, according to state health figures.

“It’s not getting any better. It’s getting worse and worse, ”Cortez said, defending his local disaster order.

Critics accused Abbott, who is running for a third term in 2022, of trying to deflect Texas ‘responsibility’ rapidly increasing number of COVID-19 on migrants as he rejects calls to reinstate mask warrants and other pandemic restrictions. Texas surpassed 7,000 virus-infected patients hospitalized for the first time since February and reported more than 11,000 new cases on Tuesday.

Abbott last week authorized the growing Texas presence of state troops along the border to “stop any vehicle on reasonable suspicion” that it is carrying migrants. Soldiers could then redirect vehicles to their point of origin or impound them. Civil rights groups and immigration advocates have expressed concerns that the directive to soldiers could invite racial profiling.

Border crossings typically slow down during the sweltering – and sometimes deadly – summer heat. But US officials said Monday they probably recovered 19,000 unaccompanied children in July, surpassing the previous record of 18,877 in March. June’s total was 15,253, according to David Shahoulian, deputy secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security, who nominated the Rio Grande Valley to have the highest numbers.

Overall, US authorities arrested migrants about 210,000 times at the border in July, up from 188,829 in June and the highest in more than 20 years. But the numbers aren’t directly comparable as many intersect on multiple occasions under a pandemic-related ban known as Title 42, which is named after a 1944 public health law.

The CDC said on Monday that the ban would remain until its director “determines that the danger of a further introduction of COVID-19 into the United States from covered non-citizens has ceased to be a serious danger for public health “.

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