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Washington: Some US cities have warned they are reaching breaking point as they struggle to cope with an influx of asylum seekers being transported from the southern border in need of shelter and services.

Days after the restriction known as Title 42 expired ending a COVID-era policy that made it easier to deport migrants, Democratic cities such as New York, Denver and Washington have become the frontlines of America’s border crisis, and leaders are demanding that the Biden administration do more to help.

In Washington, three buses filled with dozens of migrants from Texas arrived outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence over the past four days, as part of a controversial practice Republican Governor Greg Abbott started last year, which he said would give Democratic cities a taste of what border towns were going through.

In Denver, Mayor Michael Hancock said on Monday (US time) the city had already spent $US17 million ($25 million) to help migrants arriving in the Colorado capital. He said Denver applied to the federal government for a further $US11 million to meet the ongoing demand, but had only received $US900,0000.

“We’re at the breaking point, particularly with regards to resources in terms of capacity and space, as well as money,” Hancock told MSNBC.

And in New York, more than 4200 asylum seekers arrived in the past week alone, according to Mayor Eric Adams’ office. The city has already taken in about 65,000 new arrivals who await immigration court hearings, housing many of them in Manhattan hotels that used to cost tourists about $US400 a night, but have since been converted into emergency relief shelters.

Migrants seek refuge outside Sacred Heart Church in El Paso, Texas, on the day Title 42 expired.Credit: Lisa V. Lopez-Lupo

However, with room running out, Governor Kathy Hochul has called on President Joe Biden to identify federal land to house asylum seekers, such as military or naval spaces, or federally owned fields and reserves.

Adams, meanwhile, is pushing to house some migrants at hotels further north, in Rockland County and Orange County. However, this sparked outrage and legal threats from local officials, and in the case of Rockland Country, also resulted in a temporary restraining order being issued.

“Quadrupling the number of homeless in this county overnight, as the city is intending to do, will only compound our housing crisis and lead to more people living in these dangerously inhumane conditions that we are fighting to fix,” Rockland County Executive Ed Day said in a statement.

America’s immigration system has been under strain for years, but the issue came to the fore last week when Title 42, which allowed authorities to swiftly expel people at the border in order to stop the spread of COVID 19, ended at 11.59pm on Thursday night (US time).

Ahead of the policy being lifted, thousands of people from South and Central America surged to the border that separates Mexico from the US, resulting in an average of 10,000 crossings a day into Texas towns such as El Paso and Brownsville.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Blas Nunez-Neto said that figure has since dropped to an average of 5000 per day, although the situation was “still very fluid” and could rise again at any time.

Processing centres where people generally stay before being released back into the community and onto “sanctuary cities” were still at capacity. Sanctuary cities, such as New York, Denver and DC, are so called because they protect those seeking to migrate.

The border is one of the biggest challenges in the US, largely due to global shifts in migration caused by economic and political decline across many South and Central American nations, such as Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

Migrants directed onto US government buses after crossing through a section of the border wall in El Paso, Texas, on the day Title 42 was to expire.Credit: Lisa V. Lopez-Lupo

But with 18 months until the next election, the issue has become a political powder keg for Biden, who has had about six million asylum seekers detained or intercepted under his watch – more than any other president in history.

He also came to office halting construction of his predecessor Donald Trump’s border wall and suspended a Trump-era policy requiring some asylum seekers to be sent back to Mexico to await immigration proceedings.

Last week on CNN, Trump suggested that, if he returns to the White House next year, he may reintroduce his “zero tolerance” family separation policy, which resulted in thousands of children being separated from their parents at the border.

Some remain separated due to the lack of record keeping processes at the time.

“Well, when you have that policy, people don’t come. If a family hears they’re going to be separated, they love their family, they don’t come,” Trump told CNN host Kaitlan Collins.

Kaitlan Collins and former US president Donald Trump at the CNN Town Hall.

One of the main problems underpinning the broken immigration system is that there is no efficient and effective pathway to help people seek asylum, leaving many in a state of limbo.

While many of the people who cross the border are fleeing poverty, violence, or authoritarian rule in their own country, the process of getting through the courts to validate their claims can take months, if not years.

And for much of that time, they aren’t allowed to legally work (although many find “unauthorised” employment to make ends meet).

Migrants wave as a bus leaves to take them from Union Station in Chicago to a refugee centre.Credit: AP

Ilze Thielmann is one of many volunteers who have been greeting migrants since they started showing up at New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, after being bused from border states such as Texas, Arizona or California.

She said desperate people were always going to come to the US in search of a better life; therefore governments should do what they can to help them get work sooner.

“We’re always going to keep seeing people coming in, so the city, the federal government and the state really need to step up and take responsibility,” she said.

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