Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced on Monday the deployment of new forces to the border with Mexico to prevent the entry of migrants.

The move comes as the US prepares to lift on Thursday a controversial policy named Title 42, which was enforced under former President Donald Trump to allow border patrol officers to deport or turn away migrants without accepting their asylum applications.

What is the new Texas border force?

Members of the specially trained National Guard unit, titled the Texas Tactical Border Force, will be deployed with Black Hawk helicopters, Abbott said. 

"They will be deployed to hot spots along the border to intercept to repel and to turn back migrants who are trying to enter Texas illegally," he told a news conference.

Some 10,000 members of the National Guard and security forces are to be deployed along the 2,000-kilometer border, Abbott said. 

Abbott, a Republican who has criticized President Joe Biden for lifting the Title 42 policy, also wants to pass a new state law to declare the illegal entry of migrants as a felony. 

He said such a rule would give authorities the power to "detain these people in jail for a serious crime or, alternatively, return them to Mexico." 

An expected 'surge' of migrants

"We are dealing with a number of people never seen before who have crossed the border and this year we will set a new historic record," Abbott said. 

According to the US Customs and Border Protection's most recent figures, the number of processed crossings on the US southwestern border went up around 25% from February 2023 to March 2023. 

However, the rate of increase from February to March 2023 was less than that of the same period last year, around 33%. 

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during a visit to southern Texas that the US has been preparing for an expected increase in the number of illegal border crossings. 

"We've been preparing for quite some time and we are ready. What we are expecting is indeed a surge. And what we are doing is planning for different levels of a surge," Mayorkas said. 

Title 42 came in to force in 2020, amid concerns of the spread of the coronavirus. It has been deployed more than 2.5 million times, and turned away many more at the border.

fb/jcg (Reuters, EFE)