WASHINGTON – The COVID-era immigration policy known as Title 42 came to an end at midnight last night, and now even President Biden is admitting the country is about to endure chaos.

“It’s going to be chaotic for a while,” Biden admitted. 

Border patrol agents have been bracing all week for a record-breaking surge of migrants that started flooding the southern border even before Title 42 expired.

The policy allowed the U.S. to swiftly send migrants back to Mexico. With that tool now gone, the Biden administration announced this week that it will increase penalties for migrants who illegally come into the country.  

“If anyone arrives at our southern border, they will be presumed ineligible for asylum and subject to steeper consequences,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. “I want to be very clear, our borders are not open.”

Despite that claim, the border appears far from closed with record numbers of migrants pouring across in recent days. CBN News contributing correspondent, Chuck Holton visited a portion of the border wall – which needs to be strengthened due to incursions by illegal border-crossers in the area. 

“Construction workers are feverishly trying to complete a section of the border wall – and ‘this’ is a section that was not completed at the end of the Trump administration because they were blocked by the Democrats, and they had to leave all these construction materials here in the desert, until now,” Holton said. “The reason for that is this hastily constructed section of fence, which is not sufficient to keep out the migrants. You can see from these holes right here, the migrants cut right through, and they crawl under – and this is a very busy section at night.”

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Video footage taken from the southern border this week showed thousands of migrants preparing to cross into the United States. Majorkas says the U.S. is sending additional personnel to help Border Patrol process the massive influx this week, including 1,500 from the Department of Defense.

“Smugglers care only about profits, not people,” warned Majorkas. “Do not risk your life and your life-savings only to be removed from the United States if and when you arrive here.”

For border patrol agents, years of rough days and chaos are starting to take a toll. 

“I haven’t met one border patrol agent who is confident with how the government is planning to end Title 42 on Thursday night into Friday morning,” Anna Giaritelli, a Texas-based reporter for the Washington Examiner told CBN News earlier this week. “Tens of thousands of people are waiting in different Mexican cities across the border waiting to cross.”

Giaritelli says she’s concerned with the spike in suicides among agents, with 36 agents taking their own lives in the last three years.

“They feel very different, and you pick up on that,” explained Giaritelli. “There’s almost like they’re dragging their feet, they don’t want to be there anymore and it’s federal law enforcement you can’t just quit.”

Giaritelli reports there are less than 19,000 border patrol agents nationwide although the congressionally mandated number is 19,555. 

Border Patrol staffing has officially dropped below 19,000, says USBP Chief Raul Ortiz

It has a congressionally mandated staffing level of 19,555@border_security #BSE2023

— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) May 10, 2023

“Frankly what I’m hearing from Border Patrol agents is they’re past expecting any change,” she told CBN News. “They don’t expect help, I think they’re really downtrodden.” 

CBN News asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre what President Biden is doing to show America’s Border Patrol agents that he cares about the unprecedented struggles they’re facing.  She claims Biden is doing everything he can to assist the agents but is calling on Congress to fix the broken immigration system.

“The president has taken this so seriously making sure that we have troops that go down to the border so that they can give some relief to the CBP,” responded Jean-Pierre. “This is why the president has taken this so seriously making sure that we have troops that go down to the border so that they can give some relief to the CBP.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott disputes the claims that the White House is taking the border crisis seriously, tweeting:

President Biden’s border crisis:

Over 4.3 MILLION illegal crossings
Over 1.2 MILLION known gotaways
Over 178 KNOWN terrorists apprehended

And he’s now opening the floodgates by ending Title 42. President Biden has abandoned his constitutional duty to protect America.

— Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) May 11, 2023

For now, a federal judge has temporarily blocked a Biden administration policy that would have let migrants be released without court dates. 

But the U.S. immigration court system’s backlog is at an all-time high with more than 2 million pending cases. And with the end of Title 42, major cities have issued a state of emergency – including New York, Chicago and several border cities like El Paso, Texas.