Global Courant 2023-05-13 23:06:14
Migrants crossing the border without papers fell on Friday, the first day after Title 42 was lifted, two U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials told NBC News.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained between 7,500 and 8,000 undocumented migrants on Friday, compared with about 11,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday and 10,000 on Thursday, the officials said.
These numbers include both migrants illegally crossing between ports of entry — more than 7,000 of them on Friday — and those legally presenting themselves at ports of entry without proper entry documents.
The Covid-era restrictions that allowed immigration officials to quickly reject migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border expired at 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday, ushering in stricter policies for asylum seekers. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that people who used a legal road to cross the border are “presumed not to be eligible for asylum”.
He said agents were willing to humanely process and remove people who are not legally allowed to be in the United States. “The border is not open,” he said earlier this week. “People who don’t use available legal routes to enter the U.S. now face harsher consequences.”
