El Paso at 'breaking point' amid migrant surge: mayor

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STORY: "The city of El Paso only has so many resources and we have come to... a breaking point right now," Mayor Oscar Leeser told a news conference.

The crush of largely Venezuelan asylum seekers is part of a larger swell of migrants who travel dangerous routes on buses and cargo trains to Mexican border towns near San Diego, California, and the Texan cities of El Paso and Eagle Pass.

Lesser, a Democrat, said El Paso plans to open a new shelter, and on Saturday chartered five buses to take migrants to New York, Chicago and Denver.

At the news briefing, El Paso Emergency Management Director Jorge Rodriguez stressed that every migrant who boards the bus is going voluntarily. "They sign a form stating that they are going voluntarily to the destination of their choice. No one is being forced," Rodriguez said.

It comes after Republican governors in Texas and Florida were criticized for bussing off migrants to cities perceived as liberal, such as New York and Sacramento.

Leeser said Biden had been a good partner, but remarked that the overall U.S. immigration system was broken.