From middle school to migrant shelter, El Paso opens shelter doors as Title 42 nears end

Bassett Middle School still looks like students could fill its halls. Instead, the vacant campus is now ready to temporarily shelter hundreds of migrants who have recently arrived in El Paso.

The school gym, which will house men, is filled with 275 green cots. More cots sit in dorms in the former school library and orchestra room.

The school-turned-shelter has a capacity for 500 to 1,000 people, depending on whether migrants are single men or families with children, which require more space for privacy, El Paso city officials said a news conference Wednesday afternoon as the May 11 end looms for the Title 42 pandemic-era border restrictions.