NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — As the humanitarian crisis unfolds at the southern border, some experts feel the infrastructure is not in place to support their needs when Title 42 expires.
The regulatory code has been around since the 1900s, but was enacted in 2020 to stop people from migrating to the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"There won’t be immediate expulsions like there was and therefore there will be an influx," Lipscomb University's Susan Turner Haynes said.
Now, a new Biden Administration rule would make it so that asylum seekers have to first apply and be denied asylum in another country before applying in the United States.
"To characterize it as a crisis is accurate. There was a crisis before, but it’s going to be a more severe crisis post the expiration of Title 42," Turner Haynes said.
At the same time, resettlement agencies like the Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE) are busy helping Afghan and Ukrainian refugees to name a few.
“Right now, NICE and the other resettlement agencies in Nashville are at or beyond capacity," NICE development and communications director Max Rykov said.
He said it’s taking around five years for people to get asylum status.
“A majority of the Afghans who were resettled, and passed their two-year humanitarian parole period, needed to file for asylum — that continued to add to the backlog," Rykov said.
The administration created a phone app for migrants to apply, but it's not a perfect system.
"The main concern right now for NICE and other organizations that serve refugees and immigrants is there is a total lack of immigration legal services infrastructure," Rykov said.
There's a lot of confusion as to what will be needed down the pipeline too.
“It’s my understanding there’s already a lot of misinformation in the migrant community as well, that’s kind of fueling some of that surge surrounding Title 42,” Turner Haynes said. “People don’t know where their status is, what the status of Title 42 will be."
