El Paso Mayor Challenged on Failure to Declare State of Emergency, Tries to Walk Out of Press Conference – Then 24 Hours Later Changes Course

The invasion at the souther border has reached numbers we have never seen before. It has gotten so overwhelming, and bizarre, that illegal aliens are popping up out of sewers in El Paso, Texas.

At a press conference on Friday, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser was challenged on his failure to declare a state of emergency as the city faces an increasingly dire illegal migrant crisis.

When city manager Mario D’Agostino’s opinion differed, Leeser grabbed the microphone and tried to walk away.

The mayor of El Paso, Texas bizarrely tried to walk out on a press conference Friday after being challenged on the city’s worsening migrant crisis – as witnesses claim to have seen immigrants emerging from sewers and disappearing into the night.

Mayor Oscar Leeser was challenged on why the city refused to declare an emergency as they grapple with the daily release of roughly 1,600 migrants to local shelters and streets.

He claimed that it wouldn’t make a difference in helping El Paso get any more than the $6 million commitment from FEMA to try and stop the wave coming from the nearby border, which surged to nearly 2,500 per day last weekend.

However, when the city manager Mario D’Agostino disagreed with him, Leeser began to walk off and tried to take the microphone from him.

The mayor said of declaring an emergency: ‘We were able to get the funding without having to. We can also get some assistance from the state without having to do that. Declaring a state of emergency, to me, was not an option. To be able to work with our partners was a great option.’

He then argued that state officials had also told him that declaring the state of emergency was not necessary and wouldn’t make a difference.

However, later in the presser, D’Agostino did make clear what the differences would be: ‘That declaration allows the state to open additional funding outside of their normal budget.’ Leeser then ends the press conference and takes away the mic.

By Saturday, Leeser had a change of heart, issuing a state of emergency.

The New York Post reports:

The mayor of El Paso declared a state of emergency Saturday ahead of Wednesday’s deadline to lift a COVID-era policy that is expected to result in more than 6,000 migrants crossing the border a day into an already overwhelmed city where hundreds are already sleeping on the streets.

“Our asylum seekers are not safe,” said El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser at a specially called press conference to announce the emergency measures. “We have hundreds and hundreds on the street and that’s not the way we treat our people.”

Temperatures have dipped into the 20s in the city, he said, and migrants who have been released into the city are sleeping on downtown streets.

“I want to make sure that people are treated with dignity,” Leeser said, adding that he made the decision to call a state of emergency after a conference call with federal, state and municipal officials. The city government is working with local non-profits that are helping newly arrived migrants travel to other parts of the country where many have family.

“We all talked about what was best for our community,” he said, adding that more than 1,500 migrants have been crossing the border daily into the city ahead of the Dec. 21 lifting of Title 42, a Trump-era policy that saw migrants sent back into Mexico.

The sober press conference was in sharp contrast to the one called on Thursday. Leeser walked off with the microphone to avoid answering questions after he was challenged about not calling a state of emergency to cope with the migrant influx. At the time, he said that the federal government had promised the beleaguered city $6 million to help it cope with the crisis.