Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has deployed another 450 National Guard soldiers to the southern border with Mexico as the Biden administration prepares to lift the Trump-era Title 42 pandemic policy on Thursday. Abbott said the new units targeting asylum seekers will be stationed in the borderlands of El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley.

Gov. Greg Abbott: “The Texas National Guard is loading Black Hawk helicopters and C-130s, deploying specially trained National Guard members for the Texas Tactical Border Force. 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.”

Meanwhile, in California, dozens of asylum seekers have been stranded at the southern border near San Diego as many hope to be allowed into the United States after the lifting of Title 42, which for three years has been used to expel some 2.7 million migrants at the border without due process. Humanitarian aid volunteers brought food and water, as asylum seekers hadn’t eaten for days.

Nina Douglas: “We have been meeting with people who’ve been here up to seven days. … There is a very young baby here that’s been here, I know was here yesterday. There are a number of young children. They are being provided with minimal water, insufficient water. They’ve not been given food today and very little food yesterday.”