Title 42 Ending: Covid

Title 42, which lifted at midnight, had allowed the swift removal of migrants on public health grounds. Though holding facilities were full, border crossings remained lower than predicted.

Read in Spanish: Lee aquí la cobertura en español.

Miriam Jordan, Eileen Sullivan, Michael D. Shear and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

New efforts by the Biden administration to manage the effects of a worldwide increase in immigration faced their first test at the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday in the hours after the expiration of a public health measure that had allowed the authorities to swiftly remove many border crossers for more than three years.

Concerns had been building that the lifting of the order, known as Title 42, would bring scenes of chaos at the border as more people tried to enter with the expectation that they would get to apply for asylum. While a greater number crossed the border than usual in recent days, putting pressure on processing facilities and border towns, there were few signs of disorder in the hours after the policy expired at midnight.

Government officials said that anyone arriving at the border without an asylum appointment or other official path to entry would be assumed to be ineligible for asylum under a new policy, and the Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, sounded a tough note: "The border is not open," he said.

Still, thousands of migrants are being detained in Border Patrol holding facilities, awaiting processing. They are expected to be released in the coming days, creating uncertainty in towns and cities near the border, including El Paso, where Mayor Oscar Leeser told reporters on Friday: "We know this is just the beginning."

Federal officials also warned of a "difficult transition" from one set of immigration polices to another. On some days this past week, more than 11,000 people crossed the southern border illegally, according to internal agency data obtained by The New York Times, putting holding facilities run by the Border Patrol over capacity. Over the past two years, some 5,000 to 7,000 people crossed on a typical day; officials consider 8,000 or more a surge.

A person familiar with the situation said that fewer than 10,000 people were taken into custody while crossing the border on Thursday, indicating that the largest increase may have come before Title 42 lifted, although that remains to be seen. The Biden administration had said it expected as many as 14,000 border crossers daily in the immediate aftermath of the order's expiration.

Here's what else to know:

Legal challenges: Late Thursday, a federal judge in Florida directed the U.S. Border Patrol not to release any migrants into the United States without issuing them formal notices to appear in immigration court. The ruling could lead to more backups along the border. Immigration advocates also sued the Biden administration to challenge its new rules on asylum seekers. Here's more about the legal battles and what they mean.

App for migrants: The Biden administration has been heavily pushing an app launched earlier this year, CBP One, to help migrants schedule an appointment so that they can legally present themselves at the border and seek asylum. But despite improvements, the app offers only 1,000 appointments a day. By late Thursday, more than 62,000 migrants had applied for the 1,000 slots available on May 24, for example.

Influx in U.S. cities: The increase in migrants has affected places big and small, and near and far away from the border. Three Texas cities — Brownsville, Laredo and El Paso — declared a state of emergency before Title 42 expired. And many migrants have traveled or been sent on buses to New York, Boston, Chicago and even smaller cities like Portland, Maine, which said this week that it had no more room to shelter people.

Karen Zraick

The bus station in downtown Laredo, Texas, was crowded on Friday with migrants from Venezuela who had been bused there from a detention center in Brownsville. Four women, who among them had seven children ranging from 2 to 14, said they had met along the route to the U.S. border more than a week ago and were trying to find cheap bus tickets to San Antonio. Two hoped to reach New York; the others were planning to go to Chicago and Boston.

Karen Zraick

Inside the station, Dayana Mendoza, 22, was hoping to reach relatives in Dallas with her two children, aged 4 and 6, both of whom were sick with colds. She had arrived in Brownsville last Friday, and this morning she had been bused to Laredo. She had worked in restaurants in Portuguesa, Venezuela, before Mexico. "I’m exhausted and stressed, physically and emotionally," she said.

Edgar Sandoval

The mayor of McAllen, Texas, Javier Villalobos, estimated that about 15,000 migrants were waiting on Friday afternoon to cross the border from Reynosa, Mexico. McAllen yesterday set up enough tents at a public park to house 2,000 people, and it expects to be able to house as many as 5,000 in the next few days. The city is working quickly to help migrants travel beyond the border. "Their ultimate destination is up north," the mayor said.

Emiliano Rodriguez

Chihuahua state police agents and about 40 officers from Mexico's migration institute surrounded a train that had stopped on the outskirts of Ciudad Juárez, near Samalayuca, on Friday afternoon hoping to arrest migrants traveling into Juárez. One person riding on top of the train was detained. The belongings of people who had made the journey, including shoes and jackets, littered each side of the tracks.

Emiliano Rodríguez Mega and Jody García

For migrants, one of the upsides of the end of Title 42 is that those who cross the border illegally will now at least have the opportunity to apply for asylum in the United States to try to prove that they would face persecution if they returned home.

But the Biden administration is putting in place a new rule requiring people asking for such protection to show that they first applied for asylum in Mexico or another country they traveled through, and were rejected. That is a hurdle that has become increasingly hard to meet in transit countries.

In Mexico, asylum requests have nearly quadrupled in the last five years. The country is now the third largest recipient of asylum claims worldwide, according to a recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The situation has led to severe delays that have left many migrants waiting years to hear about their fate in the country.

"The system as such is collapsed," said Julio Rank Wright, regional vice president for Latin America at the International Rescue Committee. "The capacity of the institutions is overwhelmed by the number of asylum requests."

Alejandra Macías Delgadillo, director of the nonprofit Asylum Access Mexico, which assists asylum seekers, said some of her clients are still waiting to hear about claims filed in 2020. "We are almost in the middle of 2023 and people have no response," she said.

In Guatemala, asylum claims take more than a year to process, after requests doubled in 2021, a spokesperson for the country's migration agency said. Human rights groups say they have documented longer wait times, of up to two years.

There are 1,650 migrants who have applied in Guatemala, but have not seen their cases conclude, according to official data. Diego Lima, coordinator of the Lambda Observatory, an organization that supports L.G.B.T.Q. migrants, said those asylum seekers are regularly harassed by the police while they wait.

"They extort them, ask them for money and threaten them with deportation," Mr. Lima said.

Miriam Jordan

Alejandro Romero, 25, left, and Alvaro Parra, 21, of Venezuela, said they were upbeat and energized after being released by U.S. authorities in El Paso. "I am so happy, too happy," said Mr. Romero, a native of Caracas, who hopes to work as a mechanic. "It's what I do best," he said. "But I can do anything." He met Mr. Parra inside the Border Patrol station, where they waited for three days to be processed. "I’m so ecstatic to be here with my little papers," Mr. Parra said, adding, "I will do any job. Any noble work is for me. Nothing is beneath me."

Ashley Wu

Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped migrants at the southwestern border more than five million times from March 2020 through March 2023. Nearly 70 percent of those encounters involved single adults. Incidents in which the Border Patrol stopped unaccompanied children or people traveling in families also increased after the start of the Biden administration in January 2021.

Unaccompanied

minors

200,000

150,000

People traveling

in families

100,000

Single adults

50,000

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

Unaccompanied

minors

200,000

150,000

People traveling

in families

100,000

Single adults

50,000

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

Note: Data is through March 2023 and excludes encounters by the Office of Field Operations and encounters not at the southwestern border.

Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

By The New York Times

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Hundreds of migrants were fenced into temporary holding space under a bridge in El Paso. Thousands were already packed into cramped border facilities. A top border official declared that the situation had reached a "breaking point."

That was not under President Biden's administration, but rather three years ago, under that of Donald J. Trump. President Biden is now confronting not a rare challenge, but rather a recurring border crisis that has plagued the United States for decades, as public officials have repeatedly failed to reform the immigration system.

Single adult Mexicans looking for economic opportunity made up most of the migrants who crossed the border during the administration of George W. Bush. But in 2014, the demographics at the border shifted drastically to Central American families and unaccompanied children. Even then, under President Barack Obama, families fleeing poverty and corruption were packed into border stations and concrete constructions that resemble large garages in the sweltering heat. Mr. Obama then converted a warehouse into a facility that could hold 1,000 detainees.

While Mr. Trump often celebrates the tough measures at the border under his presidency, at the time he struggled to manage various influxes of illegal crossings.

After Mr. Trump announced parents and children would no longer be separated under his "zero tolerance" policy, cartels encouraged families to cross the border en masse, his officials said. In early 2019, large numbers of desperate families crossed the Rio Grande — many were detained under a bridge — prompting the Customs and Border commissioner at the time, Kevin McAleenan, to describe the situation as unprecedented. Mr. Trump's policies also fueled a dangerous level of overcrowding in government detention facilities.

Mr. Trump had discouraged many sponsors from claiming children from shelters by requiring that they provide fingerprints and other personal information, which some feared would be used to find and deport them. That left more minors stuck in border facilities that were never designed for them.

Border officials encountered nearly one million migrants in the fiscal year covering 2019, according to Customs and Border Protection data. On various occasions, migrants would also crowd at border entry points when court decisions affecting the Trump-era policies were expected to be released.

The number of illegal crossings surged when Mr. Biden came into office, fueled in part by natural disasters and deteriorating conditions in Central America. In the fiscal year covering 2022, more than 2.3 million migrants were encountered at the border. (Encounters are not the same as the number of people because one person could have tried to cross multiple times in a year, and any interaction he or she had with Border Patrol is an "encounter.") Border officials say they are currently holding about 28,000 migrants in border stations.

"If you look at it from a historic perspective, you start to realize the numbers have been increasing steadily," said Cris Ramón, who has written for the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group, and the George W. Bush Institute. "This is a kind of glimpse into the future."

Eileen Sullivan

While Title 42 was in force, migrants did not face penalties for trying to cross the border illegally multiple times. They often do so to try to increase their chances of staying in the United States, even if only temporarily.

Now that the rule is no longer in effect, migrants will once again face repercussions — a fine and jail time — if they are caught crossing the border illegally a second time.

Migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador accounted for 60 percent of the expulsions under Title 42. With its lifting, migrants from those countries have regained access to asylum under U.S. immigration law. Asylum access for migrants from those countries in particular, however, has always been narrow.

For Central Americans, that narrow window closes even more. The Biden administration has enforced new policies that require migrants to apply for humanitarian benefits available to them before they are allowed into the United States. Or they must show that they have tried to apply for asylum in countries they traveled through — like Mexico — before crossing into the United States illegally and being considered for asylum.

The administration does plan to conduct swift interviews with migrants while they are in custody at the border to establish whether they have a "credible fear" of returning to the country they fled. A previous, similar program was used for a time during the Trump administration. A majority of migrants who were interviewed under this policy were found not to have a credible fear, according to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office.

"No matter what nationality you are, if you did not apply for asylum in Mexico, or in another country and are rejected, your access to asylum is going to be significantly smaller or narrower than it was before," said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

A coalition of migrant aid groups on Friday sharply criticized the Biden administration's new policy of presuming that people who cross the border illegally are ineligible to claim asylum. The advocates said it was not reasonable to expect people fleeing violence to wait to set up an appointment using the government's new app, CBP One. "When you’re fleeing for your life, you do not schedule an appointment," Maribel Hernández Rivera of the American Civil Liberties Union said, referencing a family she had met at the border this week. "You go and save your 6-year-old daughter."

Edgar Sandoval

At a shelter for migrants in McAllen, Texas, operated by Catholic Charities, volunteers said they were working around the clock to keep up with the influx, but they have managed so far. Yesterday the shelter reached its capacity of 1,500 people, and volunteers had to turn away about 200 migrants, who were taken to tents set up at a nearby park. "I have never seen it this full," said Juan Mercado, a shelter worker.

Miriam Jordan

Oscar Leeser, the mayor of El Paso, told reporters on Friday that the city across from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico — a popular crossing point into the United States — had so far experienced a "very smooth transition" after the lifting of Title 42 at midnight. But he cautioned that thousands of migrants who arrived recently are being held in Border Patrol facilities and expected to be released in the coming days. "We know this is just the beginning," the mayor said. "We have been preparing for what's coming behind."

Miriam Jordan

For decades, the majority of migrants trying to enter the United States came from Mexico and Central America. But, recently, the number of Venezuelans, fleeing years of repression and economic collapse, has ballooned, dwarfing the numbers of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

For many of them, arriving in America is far more difficult than it is for migrants from other countries.

Many Venezuelans have no ties to the United States — no relatives or friends to receive them. Having used what little savings they had to pay for the long journey to the border, they often arrive with nothing but the clothes they are wearing. At times, their dire situation has strained cities along the border and farther away, such as New York, Chicago and Denver.

Carolina Mirabal, 34, traveled through the Darién Gap, the jungle connecting South and Central America, and atop a freight train to reach El Paso. But last week, sitting in a shelter on a gym mat, she told me she had no money to reach California, where she wished to start a new life. She had dreams — to work as a hair beautician, to give her five children a better education. Her oldest son, Emmanuel, 15, was a talented soccer player, she said.

"We don't have family anywhere," she said. "But for me, nothing is impossible."

Another Venezuelan migrant, Freddy, 20, was sleeping outside Sacred Heart Church on a collapsed cardboard box after making it across the border. He was hoping someone would help him pay for bus fare to Los Angeles.

"I heard there is a lot of work there," he said with a broad smile.

A week later, he sent a message on WhatsApp that a "kind American lady" had bought bus tickets for him and a friend. On the way, he decided to get off in Las Vegas because he learned there were plenty of jobs in the hospitality industry.

Wayne Cornelius, an immigration scholar and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, said "the single most important factor drawing migrants to the border: turbocharged US labor demand."

He added, "There has never been a better moment for economically-motivated migrants to seek work in the U.S."

Still, the lack of any connections to the United States has made it particularly challenging for Venezuelans, said Ruben Garcia, who runs a network of shelters in El Paso.

"It makes it very difficult to move them on,’’ he said. "When they do move on, they move on to shelters."

In Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican city across from El Paso, some Venezuelan migrants sold empanadas and arepas to pay rent for the overcrowded rooms they were sharing.

One of the migrants, Sergio Maigua, 32, had been lucky to secure an appointment on a Homeland Security mobile app for an interview with U.S. border officials at a port of entry. But it was in Nogales, Ariz., and he was struggling to knit together enough money for a bus ride.

At the foot of the Paso del Norte bridge that stretched across the border, Javier and Valentina Pacheco, who have two children, begged for help.

"We were robbed of everything on our way here," he said. "Give me a dollar, amigo."

Emiliano Rodriguez

By Friday morning, car traffic had slowed at the Paso del Norte bridge, which connects Ciudad Juárez with El Paso, and the number of people crossing had tapered. But about 20 U.S. border protection agents were stationed mid-bridge, and a single car lane, flanked by barbed wire and concrete blocks, still remained. Staff members of the organization Kids in Need of Defense, which assists unaccompanied migrant children, surrounded four girls that leaned against the railing.

Eileen Sullivan

The influx of migrants at the border over recent days has put holding facilities run by the U.S. Border Patrol over capacity. More than 24,000 migrants were in custody overnight Thursday, agency data obtained by The New York Times showed, in facilities meant to hold a maximum of about 18,000.

Soumya Karlamangla

New families continued to arrive at a camp next to the wall separating Tijuana and San Diego. A group of six migrants from Colombia sneaked in from Tijuana on Friday morning and, after learning that they will likely have to wait several days for processing, began searching for tarps to set up a tent.

Miriam Jordan

The number of people waiting to cross the border into El Paso declined on Friday, along with the numbers in city shelters — an indication, at least one U.S. official said, that the anticipated surge in border crossings had already passed. Shelter operators reported that it was too soon to tell, since most people who had entered the U.S. this week were still being processed. "We’ll have to see what happens in the next few days," said Ruben Garcia, director of Annunication House, a shelter that coordinates with the U.S. Border Patrol. "There are many variables."

Karoun Demirjian

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers filed a bill Friday to give the administration the power for two years to immediately expel migrants attempting to enter the country unlawfully. The bill echoes legislation filed in the Senate last week, but the measures stand little hope of becoming law. They have been criticized by some Democrats as too draconian and by some Republicans as doing too little to restrict migrants from making asylum claims.

Michael D. Shear

WASHINGTON — The southern border of the United States was crowded with migrants, but not chaotic, after the Title 42 pandemic-era restrictions lifted just before midnight on Friday. But officials said they continue to expect record high levels of border crossings in what they called a "difficult transition" during the days and weeks ahead.

The Biden administration's top immigration officials also expressed dismay at court rulings early Friday morning that they predicted would hamper their ability to deal with the latest increase in arrivals and lead to dangerous overcrowding at already jammed border patrol facilities.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, criticized an overnight ruling by a federal judge in Florida that blocked the department from releasing migrants without a notice to appear in immigration court.

"The practice of releasing individuals when our border patrol facilities, when our border patrol stations are overcrowded is something that each administration has done from administration to administration," Mr. Mayorkas said on ABC's "Good Morning America" program. "This is a harmful ruling, and the Department of Justice is considering our options."

In comments to reporters on Friday morning, several top administration officials noted that it was still early in the day along most of the border, but they said that they expected large numbers of people to attempt to cross into the United States in between the official ports of entry.

About 10,000 people crossed the border on Thursday, a bit shy of the 11,000 that officials had predicted, but still a historically large number that strained the government's network of border patrol facilities as well as the shelters run by cities, nonprofit groups and churches.

There were few scenes of large or unruly crowds at the usual crossing points.

In McAllen, Texas, the surge that many expected did not materialize at the McAllen-Hidalgo International bridge, where Customs and Border Protection officers were processing a small line of people crossing from Reynosa, Mexico, many of them regular crossers.

The first group to surrender to seek asylum — a mix of men, women and young children — reached the port of entry minutes after Title 42 expired. A row of Texas State Police trucks idled steps away from the international bridge.

In El Paso, Texas, about 40 people boarded a bus after receiving pat-downs by border officials Friday morning. The bus will take them to the processing center where they will be screened and border officials will determine whether they should be deported or have a chance to ask for asylum.

At the border in Yuma, Arizona, no one was waiting to be picked up and processed at a gap in the border wall as the sun came up. More than 100 people had arrived just as Title 42 was lifting overnight but the scene on Friday morning was uncharacteristically quiet.

Mexico's foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, also offered an optimistic characterization of the situation Friday morning, saying that the border "is calm and normal, with no major arrivals or conflicts."

Mr. Mayorkas said the administration has been preparing for years for the end of the Title 42 restrictions, and he expressed confidence that new policies — including more legal pathways for migrants as well as tough new consequences for those who try to cross illegally — will eventually reduce the number of people who try to enter without authorization.

"We continue to communicate to migrants that this is not the way to seek relief in the United States," he said on ABC. "It's extraordinarily dangerous. They are in the hands of ruthless smugglers. We have built lawful, safe and orderly pathways for them to come to the United States. They are going to meet tough consequences if they arrive at our border irregularly."

Still, Mr. Mayorkas said it would take time for those efforts to work.

"It's going to be challenging, but we have a plan," he said. "We’ve been executing on our plan. It will take time, but we have confidence that our plan will work."

Eileen Sullivan

Dozens of migrants on Friday morning had gathered around Sacred Heart Church, a respite in El Paso that earlier this week was overwhelmed with about 2,000 people. Some kicked a soccer ball back and forth, while others sat with their backs against a wall, surrounded by Red Cross blankets and plastic bags of food.

Judson Jones

As large numbers of people congregate at the U.S.-Mexico border, forecasters are warning that significant flash flooding could strike a huge swath of south-central Texas, from Del Rio to Brownsville, with periods of widespread heavy rainfall expected Friday afternoon and lasting through the weekend. Hail and damaging winds could accompany some of the storms, and tornadoes are also possible on Saturday. The threat of flooding along the Rio Grande will likely be highest between Eagle Pass and Laredo; this portion of the river is forecast to reach its highest level since 2018.

A MODERATE risk is in effect in our Day 1 Excessive Rainfall Outlook. More details: https://t.co/FQU5sbmsxo pic.twitter.com/zEmjgMhZzh

Michael D. Shear

Homeland security officials said Friday morning that the southern border remains busy, but not chaotic, after the end of Title 42, and said they are beginning to enforce tough new rules aimed at keeping people from trying to cross the border illegally. "Those who arrive at the border without using a lawful pathway are presumed ineligible for asylum," one official told reporters.

Jenna Russell

City leaders far from the U.S.-Mexico border kept a close watch as the federal rule known as Title 42 — which had allowed for the swift expulsion of migrants under the Covid-19 health emergency — lapsed at midnight, ushering in an anxious new phase of immigration policy that was expected to place greater demand on local resources across the country.

Chicago, New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., have seen growing numbers of migrants arriving in recent days and weeks, in part from buses sent by southern governors. But even outside the nation's largest metro areas, other cities have reported an increase in arrivals. Nearly double the usual number of people have crossed the border in recent days ahead of Title 42's expiration, over concerns that the change in immigration policy would make it harder for them to enter the United States.

In Boston, where hundreds of migrants have been housed in hotels, a spokesman for Mayor Michelle Wu called on the federal government to provide "the necessary support to deal with this crisis." The city wants more federal funding, more work permits for migrants, and better coordination to help its leaders anticipate arrivals, according to a statement.

In Chicago, the city has opened 10 shelters and estimates that the influx has cost more than $100 million since January.

The crush of recent migrants — and the looming likelihood that hundreds or thousands more may soon arrive as global migration continues to increase pressure at the border — has brought some cities to a painful crossroads as they confront the limits of their capacity to help. In Portland, Maine, a politically liberal city of 68,000 people 100 miles north of Boston, known for welcoming newcomers, leaders sent a clear message in recent days: no vacancy.

More than 1,200 people seeking asylum have arrived in Portland this year, mostly from Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokeswoman said, and the city is providing emergency shelter for about 1,200 people nightly in two shelters and overflow spaces including the Portland Expo, a sports venue.

"We have been very clear with people who work at the border of our current situation, and we’ve been told they have been sharing this with those crossing and seeking asylum," the spokeswoman, Jessica Grondin, said in an email late Thursday.

As Maine's largest city hit capacity, a kind of domino effect played out across the region. Migrants bypassing Portland tried their luck in Sanford, population 22,000 — and this week it, too, announced that it was full.

"We didn't know this was going to happen in Sanford," the head of a local social service organization told The Portland Press Herald, "but that's the nature of the crisis."

On a far smaller scale, northern Vermont has also felt the ripple effects, with a reported increase this year in people seeking asylum at the northern border. St. Johnsbury, home to 6,000 residents, is among the towns that have recently sought to establish a more formal system to support asylum seekers.

Edgar Sandoval

The bus station in McAllen, Texas, has been housing an overflow of migrants who are turned away from a shelter ran by Catholic Charities. Some of the new arrivals said they were told that women with children get priority. The rest of them walked to the bus station across the street to seek relief from the extreme heat and to use the restrooms.

Maria Abi-Habib

Many among a group of about 50 migrants, some from Colombia and Venezuela, cheered and clapped as they waited in Matamoros, Mexico, to legally cross the border into Brownsville, Texas. They were ecstatic that they had secured an appointment through the CBP One app to cross into Texas, where they will be interviewed by American officials and make their case for asylum. Whether they are granted asylum remains to be seen, and American officials may ask them to return to Mexico.

Emiliano Rodriguez

Mexico's foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said that the situation at the border "is calm and normal, with no major arrivals or conflicts." He added that as of yesterday, the migrant population in the border cities of Ciudad Juárez and Matamoros remained the same as earlier in the week — about 10,000 and 5,500 people, respectively. Between the wall dividing Mexico and the U.S. near Tijuana, a group of 500 people had gathered with the intention of crossing into the United States. "There is a decrease in the flows observed in the last few days," he added.

Julie Turkewitz

A new website has been created by the State Department to help migrants navigate new opportunities for legal migration to the United States.

As part of an effort to halt illegal migration across the southern border, the Biden administration announced this month that it would increase opportunities for would-be immigrants to apply, and be accepted, to the United States via existing pathways, including the U.S. refugee program; an option called humanitarian parole; family reunification; and temporary work programs.

To help migrants identify which pathways they may qualify for, the Biden administration said that it would open regional processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala, and perhaps elsewhere. The new website will provide information about these centers and ways to apply for legal migration.

So far, the information on the site has been limited to a short note about its potential as an information hub.

"The new procedures provide legal and safe routes into the United States," it promised, "which means that refugees and migrants do not need to put their lives in the hands of smugglers and attempt to travel along dangerous and irregular routes."

And then: "Please continue to monitor this site for future announcements."

Edgar Sandoval

The surge many expected did not materialize at the McAllen-Hidalgo International bridge Friday morning. Customs and Border Protection officers were processing a small line of people crossing from Reynosa, Mexico, many of them regular crossers.

Edgar Sandoval

The first group to surrender to seek asylum, a mix of men, women and young children, reached the port of entry minutes after Title 42 expired. A row of Texas State Police trucks idled steps away from the international bridge.

Eileen Sullivan

About 40 migrants boarded a bus after receiving pat-downs by border officials Friday morning. The bus will take them to the processing center where they will be screened. There, border officials will determine whether migrants should be deported or have a chance to ask for asylum.

Soumya Karlamangla and Miriam Jordan

For many migrants who have made their way to the southern border, crossing into the United States represents the culmination of a financial gamble — spending everything they have, or, as is more often the case, by going into debt, for the chance of a better future.

Azamat Alin, 41, said he had spent at least $10,000 on the long journey that had taken him from Kazakhstan to Brazil, and then through Central America to Mexico.

He had set out seeking financial opportunities and political freedom in the United States, and by Thursday he and a friend had made it as far as a no-man's land between two border fences that separate Tijuana and San Diego, where hundreds of migrants have been camping out while awaiting processing by U.S. officials.

Mr. Alin had been searching for a tarp so he could construct a makeshift tent to sleep through the cold nights. He wore wearing a plastic bag on his head to try to stay warm, and he pointed to a button-down jacket he wore over a black T-shirt. "This is all I have," he said.

He had also spent more money ordering food while in the camp — a discarded Little Caesars pizza box was at his feet. "We’re almost at zero," he said.

He didn't know that the conditions he faced trying to reach the United States would be this grim, he said, though he would have still made the journey even if he had. "There's no other choice," he said.

At a shelter in El Paso, Lacey Escobar, 32, her husband, Roberto Ortiz, 30, and their 4-year-old daughter, Genesis, were among thousands of migrants in the city who had realized their goal of entering the United States.

"God gave us permission to be here," Mr. Ortiz said.

The family, from Guatemala, chatted with another family from El Salvador who had also been processed and released by the U.S. authorities on Thursday morning. The mood was celebratory.

Having showered and eaten their first real meal in days, they now waited for bus tickets to California and Florida, where they had relatives.

The families expressed relief at having left behind gang violence and hardscrabble lives toiling in the fields in their home countries, and said they were hopeful for what lay ahead. They would still work hard in America, they said, but the pay would be much higher — and the payoff for the children worth it.

"We are here for a better future, for our families," said Jhony Sebastian, 29, from El Salvador, who was with his wife, Rosa Cruz, and daughter, Kailey, 8, her arms and cheeks burned from exposure to the sun over the days they waited beside the border wall.

Mr. Sebastian had sold his shiny, red motorcycle, his prized possession, to afford the journey north, he said, flashing a photo of the bike on his cellphone.

"You can make real money here," he said. Doing what? "Anything, whatever job God sends my way."

Eileen Sullivan

Fewer than 10,000 migrants were caught crossing the border on Thursday, during Title 42's final hours, according to a person familiar with the situation. That is slightly lower than what we’ve seen the past few days, and less than the up to 13,000 that the administration had expected as Title 42 expired. About 6,000 people have crossed on a typical busy day in recent years.

Jack Healy

There were no migrants waiting to be picked up and processed at a gap in the border wall in Yuma, Ariz., as the sun came up. More than 100 people had arrived just as Title 42 was lifting overnight but the scene on Friday morning was quiet.

Eileen Sullivan

It's calm this morning at gate 42 along the border wall in El Paso. Maybe 15 or 20 migrants waiting in the space between the river and the fence. Some were wrapped in blankets.

Raúl Vilchis

In the early morning hours, two buses from Laredo, Texas, pulled in to the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan carrying migrant families — 90 people in total — mostly from Venezuela and Colombia. One woman was on crutches. Some migrants found their own transportation, including one family from Colombia traveling with their grandmother. They hurried to the subway to find the rest of their family in Queens.

Raúl Vilchis

Twelve buses bringing more than 1,000 people, including the two today, have arrived in New York City from Texas since last Wednesday, according to Power Malu, an activist from the nonprofit Artists, Athletes and Activists, who has been greeting the buses for months.

Michael D. Shear

The Biden administration overnight blasted the ruling by a federal judge that temporarily limits their ability to release migrants from custody along the border, saying it "risks creating dangerous conditions" of overcrowding for border agents and migrants. A Homeland Security spokeswoman called claims that the agency is allowing mass releases of migrants "categorically false," but said it will comply with the ruling.

Dana Rubinstein and Jeffery C. Mays

The executive of Orange County thought that he had an understanding: New York City would hold off on sending buses of migrants to the town of Newburgh, N.Y., about 60 miles to the north, until some sort of agreement on the practice was reached. State officials appear to have been on the same page.

But then a worker from the Bear Mountain Bridge alerted the Orange County executive, Steven Neuhaus, on Thursday morning that he had seen a bus with New York police escorts crossing over.

The city had dispatched two buses of migrants. They arrived at the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh just 15 minutes after the worker's alert, and were met by protesters and supporters, as well as local police officers who had spent the night at the hotel.

Just hours before, on Wednesday night, Mayor Eric Adams's spokesman had announced a temporary pause in such transports.

A state official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the city did not give the state a heads up that they were resuming the busing, an assertion repeated by Mr. Neuhaus, but disputed by Fabien Levy, the spokesman for Mr. Adams.

"He is wrong and we made that very clear," Mr. Levy said. "We never said anything of the sort. In fact, all we said yesterday was that program was paused yesterday, but that our plans had not changed."

The apparent miscommunication underscores the difficulties Mr. Adams is facing as he frantically seeks help from his fellow New York officials in the face of a potentially dramatic increase in the already heavy flow of migrants into New York City.

On Thursday night, the federal government ceased using Title 42, a Trump-era policy to swiftly expel hundreds of thousands of migrants, some of whom might otherwise have been granted asylum.

Thousands of asylum-seeking migrants are now expected to make their way to New York City, the only major municipality in the United States that has offered shelter to all homeless people under its "right to shelter" mandate.

While Mr. Adams has spent the past year warning about how an increase in migrants would affect the city, critics say he does not appear to have done as much planning. It was only last Friday that he announced he would send migrants to two upstate counties, both run by Republicans. And it was only last Sunday that he demanded that leaders of city agencies send him a list of all facilities with enough space to accommodate large numbers of migrants.

In choosing to send the buses to Orange County, the mayor appeared to have bypassed friendlier territory, like the county of Westchester, which is led by a Democrat.

During a tense, hourlong call on Thursday with more than 100 leaders from across the state, some leaders voiced their belief that Mr. Adams was not working effectively with colleagues.

During that call, a recording of which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Neuhaus, the Orange County executive, complained directly about the miscommunication to Mr. Adams, while also implicating the state as the intermediary.

"Last night the governor's office promised us that we would have a pause on everything," Mr. Neuhaus said. "And the City of New York sent up the buses anyway." He added, "That's a problem, Mr. Mayor."

"Steve, you know who is not getting a pause?" Mr. Adams responded, referring to the influx of migrants. "Eric Adams."

More than 65,000 migrants have come to New York City in the past year, according to new numbers released by city officials on that call, and nearly 40,000 of them remain in city care at 130 emergency shelters and eight larger-scale centers.

During the call, Mr. Adams lashed out at state leaders for not joining him to lobby Washington for more assistance in dealing with the migrants.

But upstate leaders said they had not been following news of New York City's migrant issue all that closely and could not have been expected to independently lobby on the city's behalf.

Several state officials compared Mr. Adams's actions to those of Gov. Greg Abbott, a Texas Republican who has been busing migrants to New York City with little notice and no funding attached.

Mr. Adams, in contrast, has promised to fund up to four months of hotel accommodation and services for migrants who volunteer to go to the suburbs, and during Thursday's call, he told state officials he would not leave them stranded.

"I am treating your municipalities, your cities, the way I would want those who are shipping people to treat me," Mr. Adams said.

On Wednesday night, Mr. Adams also took the step of suspending some rules surrounding the right to shelter, including regulations governing how quickly the city must place families with children in private rooms with bathrooms and kitchens.

"This was a hard decision," Mr. Adams said during a news conference on Thursday. "But it's the right decision. This is just wrong what is happening to New York City. It's wrong. And no one seems to care."

At a rally on Thursday in a park by City Hall, immigration advocates argued that the expiration of Title 42 represented an opportunity for the city to continue its historical role of welcoming immigrants.

Holding signs that said "Immigrants are New York," they also called on President Biden to do more to help the city.

"We need federal resources because people will come to the city," said Carlina Rivera, a councilwoman who represents the Lower East Side of Manhattan. "They see the lady in the harbor. They know we are a sanctuary city."

Jack Healy

Under white tents on Thursday afternoon in Yuma, Ariz., migrants at the Regional Center for Border Health, a center that helps migrants, gathered in the parking lot — a sort of open-air waiting lounge. People from Angola, Brazil, China, Uzbekistan and dozens of other countries charged their phones and killed time before charter buses took them on the next uncertain phase of their journey.

They had been released from a border holding facility earlier, and were at the center to make travel arrangements. Some already had a plane ticket and were waiting for a bus to take them to the airport in Phoenix. People snacked on apples and grilled cheese sandwiches, got tested for Covid-19 and connected to Wi-Fi to reach family back home, some for the first time in days.

Several people said they were only vaguely aware of Title 42 and it was not their plan to cross into the United States just as the law was ending.

In one tent where people huddled around computers buying plane tickets, a Congolese woman named Tatiana watched her 4-year-old daughter sleep on a row of plastic chairs.

"I heard some law was going to change," she said. But her bigger concern was having almost nothing. She said she had been robbed while making her journey across the border, where she surrendered to border agents in the United States.

Gaurav Gaurav, from India, said he spent three months traveling through Latin America on boats, buses and on foot before crossing at a gap in the border wall in southern Arizona. He was hoping to reunite with a brother in Southern California.

"I just want to start a new life now," said "I don't need anything else."

On a normal day, the center sends about six buses carrying a total of roughly 330 people from Yuma to Phoenix. On Thursday, about 800 migrants left on roughly 15 buses.

Amanda Aguirre, the group's president, said her staff was already stretched to capacity and could not handle an influx of more people. "We’re already overwhelmed," Ms. Aguirre said. "We’re working day and night."

Eileen Sullivan

During the Biden administration, Title 42 did not apply to children who arrived in the United States without a parent or guardian. Even so, the lifting of the health order could have an impact on these young migrants.

Because of new policies that restrict access to asylum, parents may see a better opportunity for their children to find safety in the United States if they go alone. This could lead to an increase in migrant children at the southern border a few weeks from now.

Samira Burns, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the children while they are in government custody, said the Biden administration had been preparing for a potential increase by adding more shelters and staffing, including in areas near the border.

As of Sunday, there were more than 8,400 migrant children in department shelters and more than 500 in border custody overseen by Customs and Border Protection. By comparison, at the highest points in the spring of 2021, there were more than 22,000 migrant children in government shelters.

Increases in the number of migrant children arriving alone at the border have caused backups in the past and drawn criticism from human rights activists when the government has held them in border facilities for more than three days, the length of time allowed under a court settlement. When this has happened, it has largely been because the Health and Human Services Department has not had enough space in its shelter system to handle the increase.

This situation presented an early crisis for President Biden. The Department of Homeland Security helped set up emergency facilities where children could be under the care of the Health and Human Services Department. However, child welfare advocates said some of those facilities provided poor conditions.

The Biden administration has also been criticized for rushing migrant children out of its custody and placing them with inappropriate sponsors who have exploited the young migrants.

Natalie Kitroeff and Julie Turkewitz

More people across Latin America are leaving their homes and heading to the United States than at any other time in six decades.

While migration to the U.S. southern border has always fluctuated, the pandemic and the recession that followed hit Latin America harder than anywhere else in the world, plunging millions into hunger, destitution and despair.

A generation of progress against extreme poverty was wiped out. Unemployment hit a two-decade high. Russia's invasion of Ukraine choked off a key pipeline for grain and fertilizer, triggering a spike in food prices.

Conflict between armed groups festered in once relatively peaceful countries and raged in places long accustomed to the terror.

"You couldn't come up with a worse set of facts to leave tens of millions of people with no choice but to move," said Dan Restrepo, who served as President Barack Obama's top adviser on Latin America. "It's inevitable that you’d have massive displacement, it really is a perfect storm."

Migrants are coming from places like Venezuela, which was suffering one of the worst economic crises in the world before the pandemic. Much of the country sunk further into misery when the coronavirus shut the world down. A mass exit deepened, bringing the total number of Venezuelans who have fled since 2015 to 7.2 million — roughly a quarter of the population.

In Colombia, joblessness reached its highest rate on record. Brazil recorded the second highest number of Covid deaths worldwide. Immigrants who had already traveled from across Latin America to these two countries were among the first to lose their hold on any hope of a livelihood.

The Darién Gap, a treacherous 70-mile stretch of jungle that connects Central and South America, suddenly became a migration thoroughfare. The United Nations expects as many as 400,000 people to pass through the gap this year, nearly 40 times the yearly average from 2010 through 2020.

John Yoon

The Biden administration on Friday warned migrants heading to the southern border that the expiration of Title 42, a federal policy limited illegal immigration into the United States, would not make it easier for them to enter.

"Do not believe the lies of smugglers," Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, said just after Title 42 expired at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday. "The border is not open."

For more than three years, Title 42 had allowed the United States government to swiftly expel many people who crossed the border before they could apply for asylum. Federal border agents were set to return on Friday to the prepandemic rules for enforcing immigration law, known as Title 8.

People arriving at the border illegally will now be deemed ineligible for asylum and face "tougher consequences," including a five-year ban on re-entry and potential criminal prosecution, Mr. Mayorkas said in the statement.

To enforce immigration laws, he added, 24,000 Border Patrol agents and officers were already at the Southwestern border. He had said on Wednesday that more than 1,400 Homeland Security personnel, 1,000 processing coordinators and 1,500 Department of Defense personnel would be deployed there.

On Thursday, Mr. Mayorkas said at the White House that he expected a temporary increase in migration at the border.

"This places an incredible strain on our personnel, our facilities, and our communities with whom we partner closely," he said.

The Border Patrol chief, Raul Ortiz, told CBS on Thursday that "upwards of 60,000 migrants" were waiting near the border. "We’re focused on ensuring that we’re doing everything we can to allocate resources to address those flows," he said.

Jack Healy, Soumya Karlamangla, Edgar Sandoval and Eileen Sullivan

The expiration of Title 42, which authorized swift expulsions of many asylum seekers, was widely expected to unleash chaos in border cities like El Paso, where a respite destination, the Sacred Heart Church, was already overwhelmed with some 2,000 migrants this week.

But there was little sign of chaos, only of crowds, at the church on Friday morning. Dozens of migrants congregated outside, some of them kicking a soccer ball back and forth while others sat against a wall, surrounded by Red Cross blankets and plastic bags of food.

Jan Carlo, a 47-year-old from Venezuela, had just turned himself in to the border authorities to be entered into the immigration system. While still in Mexico, he had tried for days to get an interview appointment through the government smartphone app but eventually gave up in frustration. He crossed into the United States undetected about 10 days ago, he said, and had been sleeping outside the church since then.

"I don't want to go inside here because it's full," he said. "So I’d better stay out here, because I have more security," with police officers stationed close by, he said.

The story was similar at other points along the border on Friday, where officials had been braced for a drastic surge that did not materialize overnight. Department of Homeland Security officials said that the situation in the morning was busy but not chaotic. If anything, there seemed to be a bit fewer migrants crossing than had been seen in the previous few days.

Here are a few scenes along the border:

A gap in the border wall in Yuma, Ariz., was uncharacteristically quiet at sunrise Friday, with no migrants waiting to be picked up. More than 100 migrants had crossed at the gap around midnight.

At the McAllen-Hidalgo International bridge, Customs and Border Protection officers were processing a small line of people crossing from Reynosa, Mexico, in the morning, many of them local people who cross the border regularly to work or shop.

Newly arrived migrants who were turned away from a crowded Catholic Charities shelter in McAllen were crossing the street to the city's bus station to seek relief from the extreme South Texas heat and use the restrooms. Some new arrivals said they were told that women with children were getting priority at the shelter.

Between 15 and 20 migrants, some wrapped in blankets, were in the narrow strip of ground between the border wall and the Rio Grande in El Paso on Friday morning, waiting to pass through Gate 42 of the border wall. About 40 migrants who had already gone through the gate were being patted down by officers and boarding a bus to be taken for screening at a processing center.

A group of about 50 migrants, including Colombians and Venezuelans, lined up near a legal border crossing in Matamoros, Mexico, to cross into Brownsville, Texas. Many had asylum interview appointments with U.S. officials, arranged through the Border Patrol's new smartphone app, and were smiling in relief. The crowd occasionally broke out in cheers and claps at the news. One of those waiting in line was Natalia Andrea Vergel García, a Colombian woman who told The New York Times earlier in the week that she had fled her home country after being raped by a paramilitary group that also tried to rape her two daughters.

Hundreds of migrants camped by a wall separating Tijuana and San Diego on Friday morning, many of them wrapped in Mylar blankets and huddled together under cloudy skies. A few Border Patrol officers were in the camp talking to them. The number of migrants did not appear to have grown significantly overnight. A group of six migrants from Colombia arrived in the camp from Tijuana on Friday morning and, after learning that they may have to wait several days to be processed, began searching for tarpaulins to set up a tent.

Brayan Piar of Venezuela crossed the border shortly after midnight and walked with other migrants toward the Department of Homeland Security's makeshift processing center in Brownsville. Their trousers were still wet with mud as they limped along the darkened levee, celebrating their arrival while being ushered along by Border Patrol agents.

Victoria Kim and Maria Abi-Habib contributed reporting.

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this item referred incorrectly to a migrant camp along a wall separating San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. The camp lies on United States territory outside the border wall; it is not on the American side of the wall.

How we handle corrections