US-Mexico border crossings are down 50% since Title 42 ended

"In fact, over the past two days, the United States Border Patrol has seen an approximately 50% drop in the number of people encountered at our southern border as compared to the numbers earlier this week before Title 42 came to an end at midnight on Thursday," Mayorkas said.

Under the new program, migrants seeking asylum must use a US government app to seek an appointment for an asylum interview or show evidence that they have sought asylum in a country they traversed en route to the US border. Anyone attempting to cross into the US illegally after being denied entry faces a 5-year entry ban and possible prosecution.

Challenged by ABC's Jonathan Karl about similarities between the new asylum policies and those put in place Donald Trump during his presidency, Mayorkas insisted the new rules did not amount to an "asylum ban."

"What our rule provides is that an individual must access those lawful pathways that we have made available to them. If they have not, then they must have sought relief in one of the countries through which they have travelled and been denied," Mayorkas said. "And if they haven't done either, it's not a ban on asylum, but they have a higher threshold of proof that they have to meet. That is a presumption of ineligibility that can be overcome. It is not a ban."

Mayorkas said that US Border Patrol agents had about 6,300 encounters with border crossers on Friday and another 4,200 on Saturday, compared with more than 10,000 shortly before Title 42's expiration.

 

 

With barbed wire and warnings, migrants stopped at US-Mexico border

After hours of waiting on the US side of the border and hoping the Texas National Guard would let them seek US asylum, a group of 15 migrants crossed a shallow green river back to Mexico, their faces are drawn in disappointment on Saturday.

After travelling from countries including the Dominican Republic and Guatemala, they were among the first people on Saturday attempting to enter the US from Mexico after the end of Covid-19 restrictions that had blocked many migrants from requesting asylum at the border for the last three years.

But access to asylum is still restricted.

Texas soldier told the group to go back to Mexico just north of a river dividing El Paso, Texas, and Mexico's Ciudad Juarez, beneath a bridge that joins the two countries.

As the migrants trudged up the sandy, trash-strewn riverbank into Mexico, a Guatemalan man said the Texas troops had been clear and told him "the only way to ask (for asylum) would be the bridge, nothing else."

Two dozen National Guard troops quickly set about stretching coils of barbed wire across the cement base of the bridge where the migrants had been.

Under the order known as Title 42, U.S. authorities could quickly turn back migrants without giving them a chance to seek asylum.

Since that policy ended on Thursday night, Reuters witnessed nine instances in which US authorities told asylum-seekers aiming to enter from Ciudad Juarez - including Venezuelans, Cubans, Colombians and Mexicans - that they needed appointments via a government app called CBP One.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in recent years has grappled with record crossings, and in the wake of Title 42's expiration has said it is prioritizing migrants with appointments to streamline processing.

Beneath the Ciudad Juarez-El Paso bridge, a Texas National Guard member warned migrants that if they came further into the U.S., they would be deported and barred from applying for US entry for five years.

New regulation presumes most migrants are ineligible for asylum if they passed through other countries without first seeking protection elsewhere, or if they failed to use legal pathways.

Such messages have reached the ears of many migrants who are pinning their hopes on CBP One. US Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas on Sunday said the number of migrants crossing the border fell by half since the end of Title 42.

Yet some are unfamiliar with the app.

Kleisy, a 16-year-old from Guatemala travelling alone, arrived minutes after the group had dispersed from under the bridge, and said US officials elsewhere on the border had delivered a similar message.

"They said I couldn't cross here," she said, struggling to make herself heard through a sudden stream of tears.

The teenager in black jeans and a bright yellow baseball hat left her hometown of Jalapa alone and hoped to reunite with her father in Dallas, Texas, after a 10-year separation.

Kleisy, who gave only her first name, crossed to the U.S. side of the river, approached the nearest soldier and asked to cross. He quickly waved her back, telling her to find a formal border point.

The Texas troops unspooled more barbed wire.