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Migrants attempt to cross the US-Mexico border after the lifting of Title 42 in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, US, on Thursday, May 11, 2023. President Joe Biden warned of tumultuous conditions at the US-Mexico border after pandemic-era immigration restrictions are lifted today.
(Bloomberg) — The number of migrants seeking to cross the southern US border has been “markedly down” during the past two days, bucking expectations of a surge after pandemic-era border rules expired, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.
The US Border Patrol “has experienced a 50% drop in the number of encounters versus what we were experiencing earlier in the week,” before the restrictions known as Title 42 were lifted, Mayorkas said on CNN’s State of the Union.
While he said it’s too soon to say whether the numbers have peaked, border agents reported about 6,300 encounters on Friday and 4,200 on Saturday. That’s down from a record high of 10,000 a day early last week.
A relative calm prevailed over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, which has been receiving throngs of asylum seekers passing through neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The huge crowds of people from Central America, South America, the Caribbean and have dwindled to groups of dozens on both sides of the border.
Political Fallout
The unprecedented jump in border crossings during recent months has been a political albatross for President Joe Biden, with Republicans and some fellow Democrats questioning whether the White House was prepared to handle the influx. It’s also been straining social services and nonprofits across the country as migrants have been bused north.
Republicans have repeatedly said that the sunsetting of Title 42, a public health measure that restricted migrants during the heights of the Covid-19 pandemic, would lead to a fresh surge in attempted crossings. And it still could happen.
“The problem is the way Mayorkas and those guys have done it, with catch and release and you know, not deporting people, and all the things they’ve done to encourage people to come into the country is basically making the problem of migration worse,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican, said on State of the Union.
On ABC’s This Week, Mayorkas said he believes the declining numbers show the administration’s policies are working.
Read More: How End of Title 42 Complicates Biden’s Border Policy: QuickTake
“We have been preparing for this transition for months and months, and we’ve been executing on our plan accordingly,” Mayorkas said. “Our plan is very straightforward, there is a safe, lawful and orderly way to reach the United States.”
Late on May 11, a federal judge in Florida on temporarily blocked the Biden administration from allowing certain migrants to enter the US for a limited time while they await immigration proceedings, derailing one of the administration’s tactics to alleviate overcrowding in border facilities. By then, however, many migrants were already on their way to US cities away from the border.
In New York, Mayor Eric Adams on Saturday announced the city’s first arrival center for asylum seekers. The facility, an old hotel, will be located in Manhattan’s Midtown East neighborhood and initially offer as many as 175 rooms for children and families before being expanded to about 850 rooms. The housing center will open this week.
“We don’t anticipate a slowdown,” said Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for Mayor Adams, adding that the city has been receiving hundreds of asylum seekers a day.
Since last spring, New York has taken in more than 65,000 asylum seekers as of May 10, a city official said, and 39,400 are still under its care.
Read More: NYC Receives Migrants Bused From Texas, Piling Pressure on Adams
As Title 42 expired, 1,000 more asylum officers were sent to Border Patrol facilities to process asylum requests along with 1,500 US military personnel to help with logistical tasks. Roughly 1,400 medical staff and 1,100 processing coordinators were also sent to the southwest border.
Desperate Journeys
While a surge didn’t materialize over the weekend, many asylum seekers in border areas were busy planning their next moves after long and often terrifying journeys — not sure what might be next.
In Ciudad Juarez, a stone’s throw from the Paso del Norte bridge to El Paso, a 49-year-old plumber from Ecuador in a small tent camp said he and his family fled death threats from a local gang that demanded protection money for his wife’s small used-clothing business. Because of that, he asked not to be named.
The couple and their two daughters, ages 15 and 11, said they arrived in Ciudad Juarez at 9 p.m. on May 12. That was almost 24 hours after Title 42 expired — and four months after they left Ecuador on a trip that would take them through Colombia, the densely forested Darién region in Panama and up through Central America. In southern Mexico, they joined a caravan of migrants.
He pulled out a mobile phone with a cracked screen and showed the US Customs and Border Protection app he was using to try to schedule an appointment to plead his case. The family’s hope is to get to Queens, New York, where his wife has relatives.
But he’s now uncertain, other than that he and his family have suffered and that he deserves a chance to apply for asylum in a safe country with opportunity — the US.
“I have my hands and my health,” he said. “All I want is to work.”
–With assistance from Tony Capaccio, Daniela Sirtori-Cortina, Immanual John Milton and Leda Alvim.
(Updates with migrants’ experiences in last section)
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