CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Brooks County Judge Eric Ramos told 3NEWS Friday that he is expecting more migrants to surge across the border following the end of Title 42.
According to a report, The U.S. Supreme Court removed a March hearing on Title 42 from their calendar.
The public health order allows the federal government to turn away migrants from countries where diseases are spreading. Former President Donald Trump enacted the policy in 2020 to limit the coronavirus's spread.
"We did make adjustments in the budget at the beginning of this year because we saw an uptick last year," he said. "So we thought we would put more in and we have a couple of budget strategies."
For years, Brooks County has been a hotbed for human smuggling operations. So, this year the judge has set aside $100,000 to help cover the cost of the sheriffs department having to deal with the expected surge.
"That percentage represents easily 35 or 40 percent of the entire sheriffs budget," he said.
Falfurrias City Manager Andy Garcia said the police department needs better equipment to better combat human smuggling due to the shortage of officers.
"So we are trying to push into the LPR recognition system, so right now, the city is actually working on building LPR's within the city. Because of our staff shortages we want to look ahead and start using technology to help us identify this abnormal traffic that we're seeing through our communities," he said.
Garcia said right now it costs about $500,000 a year to run the police department. He knows that several more officers are needed and is hoping to find that cash through the state or another source.
Matt Houston form out sister-station KENS5 contributed to this report.
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