The makeshift camps that set up migrants along several Mexican border cities as they waited to cross into the United States looked virtually empty Monday, four days before the end of Title 42.
On the border of Tijuana, Baja California, only the remains of a camp that housed hundreds of people remained in the hours before the end of the health ordinance that allowed the expeditious expulsion of more than 2.8 million migrants since its implementation in 2020.
"The last migrant from this area was transferred yesterday, Sunday afternoon, to a people processing center," said Francisco Fajardo, Noticias Telemundo's correspondent from San Ysidro, California.
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Where the camp had once been in Tijuana, on Monday there was only trash and clothes left behind by the Migrates, a scene that was repeated in other border cities in northern Mexico, such as Juarez or Matamoros.
Without offering exact figures, US authorities have reported a decrease of almost 50% in irregular crossings in recent days, despite fears of just the opposite: that arrivals are skyrocketing due to the end of Title 42.
Migrants camp outside an entrance at the border with Mexico, in El Paso, Texas, on May 12, 2023.Andres Leighton/AP
On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week 11,000 migrants were intercepted each day, and on Thursday around 10,000. But only about 4,400 crossings were recorded Saturday, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
Faced with the end of the health norm, the authorities have again resorted to the so-called Title 8 of the current immigration law to process migrants who cross the border, warning that they will not allow them to request asylum to those who have crossed irregularly or have not requested protection in a country through which they passed before.
Deportation flights "to more than 10 countries"
"We have captured and repatriated thousands of non-citizens, both single persons and families, to more than 10 countries, such as Colombia, Honduras and Peru," Blas Núñez-Neto, undersecretary of Border Policy and Immigration, said Monday at a press conference.
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"This is the first time the Government of Mexico has accepted returns of non-Mexican citizens at our land border. It is working well in recent days," the official added.
But Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has continued to highlight the precariousness of the U.S. immigration system and urged Congress to undertake reforms he considers "urgent."
"We desperately need immigration reform to fix the system, not to dismantle it," Mayorkas said Sunday in an interview with CNN, in which he also criticized the immigration bill introduced by Republicans on Friday, which seeks the construction of more border wall and new restrictions on asylum.
New York Opens Schools to House Immigrants
As crossings descend at the border, several cities hundreds of miles away, including Chicago and New York, are struggling to cope with the surge of migrant arrivals.
New York City has set up three new shelters for border arrivals amid a surge of arrivals to the Big Apple fueled, in part, by Gov. Greg Abbott's dispatch of busloads of migrants from Texas.
Beds installed at school in Staten Island, New York, to shelter migrants
May 15, 202300:24
The EFE news agency reported that the centers for immigrants would be set up in school gymnasiums, which has caused protests from some parents.
At one of the high schools, P.S. 188 in Brooklyn, parents of students protested against temporary housing of immigrant adults, according to CBS footage.
Two other schools — one in the Williamsburg neighborhood, also in Brooklyn, and the other in Staten Island — have also been designated as temporary shelters, and two more are "studying" doing the same, according to ABC 7.
More than 65,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since August. The mayor, Eric Adams, declared an emergency in order to deal with the situation.
The opening of schools was the latest measure taken by the authorities, who have already opened 140 temporary shelters, many of them in private hotels such as the once luxurious Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.
