Our borders are not open, White House warns migrants
With reporting from Bernd Debusmann, Angelica Casas, Sam Granville, Sophie Long, Sarah Smith and Will Grant at the border
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With reporting from Bernd Debusmann, Angelica Casas, Sam Granville, Sophie Long, Sarah Smith and Will Grant at the border
Live Reporting
Edited by Brandon Livesay and Marianna Brady
All times stated are UK
Let's get into the politics
Marianna Brady
Live reporter
The border may be thousands of miles away, but Washington is abuzz with talk of the border today as the Title 42 policy is set to expire at midnight tonight.
Democrats in Congress are holding a press conference addressing the border.
And a White House press briefing has just started with fresh warnings to migrants who seek to enter the US, as well as a call for patience.
We'll step away from the border for a bit as we have a look at what's going on in the capital to deal with the looming migrant crisis.
How the border crisis is being felt far away
Mike Wendling
Reporting from Chicago
The border situation is creating ripple effects thousands of miles away.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has sent thousands of migrants to cities in other states. More than 8,000 of them have ended up in Chicago, where earlier this week Mayor Lori Lightfoot declared a state of emergency.
“We should all understand that this crisis will likely deepen before we see it get better,” Lightfoot said in a statement.
The declaration allows the city to access emergency funds and could result in the state’s national guard being called in to help, though the mayor - who leaves office next week - says it the situation hasn't come to that, yet.
The new arrivals, currently about a hundred a day, are sleeping in shelters and police stations. But space has more or less run out. Locals in one neighbourhood have even constructed a temporary shelter to house families, the Chicago Tribune reported.
This is a political tussle with real people in the middle. Abbott, a Republican, blames Democratic Party policies for large numbers of migrants crossing into Texas and other border states.
And the country’s major cities – including Chicago – are run mostly by Democrats.
Schools turned to shelters
Samantha Granville
Reporting from El Paso, Texas
As the school year ends and the city of El Paso prepares for a surge in migrant crossings when Title 42 expires, Mayor Oscar Leeser announced that a federally funded migrant shelter would open at a middle school in the city.
“We can’t say the worst is over, but we know what we see out there today, we know what we see in Juárez,” Leeser said.
“We will continue to be proactive; we are opening up this school.”
It’s only meant to be a temporary shelter with people staying for 24-72 hours. He said the city needs to decompress the system, which means processing migrants quickly so they are not stuck in overcrowded detention centers at the border.
Officials say families will not be separated in this shelter, but there will be separate areas for males travelling alone.
From Title 42 to Title 8
Angelica Casas
Reporting from El Paso, Texas
Despite what many politicians and what even some migrants might think, the US will not have an "open border" when Title 42 ends.
In fact, entering the US might become more difficult for some, especially for those who have previously been deported.
Beginning tomorrow, the US will transition back to immigration rules outlined under Title 8, a migrant processing system used before that allows for expedited removals and carries with it a five-year ban on re-entering the US after a deportation.
In a statement last month, the Department of Homeland Security outlined that “the return to processing under Title 8 is expected to reduce the number of repeat border crossings over time, which increased significantly under Title 42.”
Through Title 8, immigrants will again be able to ask for asylum at a port of entry, something that Title 42 had effectively stopped.
If authorities can determine credible fear, they’ll be allowed to remain in the US as they wait for their court hearing, though some appointments are for months or years from now.
Under new Biden regulations, most migrants will be considered inelligible for asylum if they passed through other countries without first seeking protection there, or if they do not enter the US legally.
Have migrant figures spiked already?
The big question is: Will lifting Title 42, ending forced expulsion of all undocumented migrants, lead to more people trying to cross the US border?
Even ahead of Title 42 being lifted on Thursday at midnight, US Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz said that the force recorded an average of 8,794 migrant apprehensions each day.
The number is up from a recent average of 7,700 per day.
Internal projections, however, show that the numbers could rise to between 10,000 and 13,000 throughout the rest of May after the policy is lifted.
More than two million people were detained under the policy in the 2022 fiscal year that ended on 30 September - a 24% jump from the previous year.
Just over the border in Mexico, migrants wait
Sarah Smith
North America editor, reporting from Ciudad Juárez
MiLexi Gomez told me about travelling from Venezuela, taking her four young children through unmarked jungle, carrying them up mountains and then having to jump on top of trains when they could not afford to buy tickets.
Now they are all having to sleep in the dirt, she fears the colds her twin boys are suffering could turn to bronchitis.
"We are feeling desperate," she says. "I ask God what I should do to protect my children in this place."
These scenes are highly unusual. Normally migrants seeking to enter America would be housed in shelters in downtown Juárez, the Mexican city that shares a border with El Paso, Texas. But the numbers that have gathered in recent days have overwhelmed the system. Officials who have worked along the border for decades say they have never seen anything like it.
Gomez says she had heard on the news that she had to arrive before the 11 May to stand a chance of getting in. She is worried that with so many other people also gathered here her family might not make it across the border in time.
"We are very worried because we have already sacrificed so much," she told me. "If we can't get into America, I don't know where we will go as we can't go back to my country. That's the truth."
Read more here.
What's coming up
Brandon Livesay
Live reporter
It's just ticked past 9:00 in El Paso, Texas, where our correspondents Bernd Debusmann Jr and Angélica Casas have been speaking with both locals and authorities to get a sense of what is happening on the border.
Bernd and Angelica will head to a shelter later this morning to speak with migrants who have already crossed into the US, and they will share some of these stories with us.
Then they will meet up with a local food truck which helps provide meals to migrants. They'll give us some idea of the scale of how many people arrive each day, and what happens when migrants cross the border.
Video content
How Title 42 fallout could turn into a 2024 campaign issue
Katty Kay
US special correspondent
The White House is watching the border carefully, they know it will be a big and potentially difficult issue in the 2024 election campaign.
Specifically, a senior White House official told me this week there was concern that giving Vice-President Kamala Harris the immigration portfolio early on in the administration had set her up for failure, not success. It was something of a poisoned chalice.
This matters because a key part of Biden's reelection strategy is boosting his vice-president's approval ratings so she can campaign successfully alongside him.
And Harris has actually been credited with raising significant private sector funds to deal with the root causes of immigration in the troubled countries to America's south - one senior executive of a major US corporation singled her out to me last year for her work in Honduras and El Salvador.
But politically she has been hurt by the immigration issue. She was widely criticised for going on US network TV last year and calling the border "secure".
What does it mean to lift Title 42?
Will Grant
Reporting from Mexico City
In the short term, the lifting of Title 42 is likely to mean greater confusion at the US-Mexico border, particularly for the tens of thousands of undocumented migrants already gathered there.
In the final few days before the Trump-era public health policy is lifted, thousands of migrants crossed into the US in the belief they might be in a stronger position to remain once the rules change.
Some 24,000 border patrol agents have been deployed to the border as well as 1,500 additional troops.
The key difference is border agents will no longer be able to unilaterally deport anyone who crosses into the United States without the proper paperwork.
Instead, the Biden Administration is trying to oblige migrants to apply for entry using a new online portal called CBP One before they reach the US.
However, many migrants in border cities like Ciudad Juárez in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua have complained the app often doesn’t work and hasn’t allowed them to apply for asylum in the US from Mexico as promised.
What yesterday looked like in El Paso
Here's a quick look at what was happening in the border city yesterday and last night as officials prepared for the end of Title 42.
El Paso shares six border crossings with sister city Ciudad Juárez, which is located in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.
Good morning from El Paso
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from El Paso, Texas
I’ve just woken up in El Paso, Texas - where officials say they’re stepping into the “unknown” with the impending end of Title 42, exactly a minute before midnight (EST).
For days, immigration authorities - and President Joe Biden himself - have warned the end of the policy may be chaotic, at least in the short-term.
Personally, I’ll be looking to see how this is reflected on the city’s streets - will there be any immediate change? Will it look and feel different? How will the city, and those tasked with helping the migrants, cope?
Then there’s the migrants themselves. Many simply seek a better life in the US, and are now caught in a policy battle that could mean the difference between a new life in the US and deportation back home.
Let's take a look at some of the numbers
What is the new policy?
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from El Paso, Texas
With Title 42 lifted, the US will return to a policy where migrants are screened to determine if they are eligible for asylum and quickly deported if they do not qualify.
Migrants who are caught crossing illegally and deported will be barred from re-entering the US for at least five years, and will be "presumed ineligible for asylum", according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The US plans to open new migrant processing centres in Colombia and Guatemala in a bid to help reduce undocumented immigration. The idea is to have migrants apply in these countries instead of at the US border.
As part of an agreement announced on 2 May, Mexico has agreed to continue to accept 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, four countries that make up a large portion of illegal crossing.
The US, for its part, has agreed to take up to 100,000 people from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who have family in the US.
What is Title 42 and why is it ending?
Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from El Paso, Texas
The policy started in March 2020, when the Trump administration used it as a means to stop the spread of Covid-19 across its borders.
With Title 42 in place, US authorities were able to swiftly expel would-be migrants attempting to cross the border from Mexico - including those seeking asylum - using the pandemic as justification.
When Joe Biden came into office, he continued to defend the policy for more than a year and used it to expel about two million people from 2021-2022
But in April of last year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - which oversees US health policy - signalled it would end the policy, saying there was a diminished risk from Covid-19.
Title 42's end, however, was repeatedly delayed as Republican-led states sought to keep the policy in place.
The winding down of Covid measures means the policy no longer has any public health justification - prompting officials to announce it would end on 11 May, the same day as the official US public health emergency.
Welcome
Brandon Livesay
Live Reporter
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the end of the controversial immigration policy, Title 42.
The Covid-era policy ends 23:59 EST (04:59 GMT) and authorities are expecting chaos at the border, which will probably stretch across the next few weeks and potentially much longer.
Title 42 was initially created by the Trump administration so the US could swiftly expel migrants amid the pandemic. But it has been extended multiple times.
This live page will be reporting from both sides of the US-Mexico border to give you a sense of what is really happening on the ground.
We will help guide you through the day by sharing stories from the people who are impacted the most, the politics behind it all, and we will unpack the sheer scale of the issue.
If you are just hearing about Title 42 for the first time, or need a refresher on the topic, we have this explainer.