EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — The processing of cargo will be temporarily suspended at the Bridge of the Americas in South El Paso to allow border officers to assist with the processing of migrants, particularly family units and unaccompanied children.
CBP said in a news release that beginning Monday, CBP’s El Paso Office of Field Operations will temporarily suspend cargo processing at the Bridge of the Americas, whose cargo lot is typically open from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.
CBP officers will be processing migrants who have arrived between ports of entry.
During the suspension, truckers are asked to use other cargo facilities in El Paso, including those at the Ysleta, Santa Teresa, and Tornillo ports of entry.
Earlier this week, CBP closed Ped West, a pedestrian border crossing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry so officers can assist with migrant processing. Officials told Border Report that the move was necessary because processing facilities in the San Diego area have been operating over capacity.
The pedestrian border crossing had been closed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic but opened only its northbound lanes about eight months ago.
The Department of Homeland Security this week released hundreds of asylum-seekers who were recently processed at Border Patrol stations in San Diego. Border Report was there as migrants exited several white unmarked buses in South San Diego.
In Arizona, border agents have also been overwhelmed with a recent wave of migrants, according to a congressman whose district stretches to the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a letter addressed Wednesday to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Arizona, said border agents and officers are overwhelmed and border communities are overrun.
“For months now, the quantity of migrants crossing the border has steadily increased to record-breaking numbers,” he said. “We have now seen days with more than 10,000 migrants encountered. Today, there have been over 200 migrants released onto the streets of southeastern Arizona border communities in the Tucson Sector alone.”