Calm along Arizona-Mexico border day after Title 42 ended

Title 42 officially ended Thursday after more than three years, more than 2 million migrant expulsions and numerous attempts to lift the policy.

The border restriction expired as scheduled at 8:59 p.m. Arizona time.

Friday was the first full day since March 2020 that Title 42 was not enforced at the nation’s borders. All was calm Friday at Arizona's ports of entry. But it was unclear if it was a calm before a storm.

With thousands of migrants waiting at the border to claim asylum and cross into the U.S., local aid organizations were still waiting to get a better idea of what’s ahead.

The line to cross into the U.S. through the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry stretched out of the entry turnstiles and into the nearby sidewalk Friday morning.

The number of people in line was typical for this time of day and even shorter than other days and times, according to Francisco Olachea Martin, an advocate who provides humanitarian assistance to migrants regularly near the port of entry.

By late Friday morning, the Arizona side of the Nogales border entry had quieted from the morning rush of commuters with no obvious signs of asylum seekers in the mix.

“As of right now, we haven’t seen any major changes,” said Diego Piña-Lopez, program manager for Casa Alitas Welcome Center in Tucson, the morning after the restrictions were lifted.

The scene was similar at other points along the U.S.-Mexico border.

City leaders in El Paso, Texas, considered the epicenter of the migrant crisis, on Friday were awaiting what some called the "unknown" after Title 42 pandemic restrictions expired along with the official end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the El Paso Times reported.

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser said during a briefing Friday that only about 150 people, all families, are in city shelters and an area hotel, while single men and women are being sheltered elsewhere.

“Title 42 has come and gone,” Leeser said. “We actually have had a very smooth transition as Title 42 has lapsed and we move to Title 8.”

Title 8 is the section of the U.S. Code that outlines the rules and regulations for immigration and the removal of people who do not have a legal basis to stay in the United States. That includes the policies that had been in place prior to the implementation of Title 42 in March 2020, and which will continue in place with Title 42 expired.

In California, the first group of asylum seekers to be processed at the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego under post-Title 42 changes lined up early Friday morning at the Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico

Those asylum seekers had secured appointments previously using the U.S. government's CBP One phone app. A large portion of the group included asylum seekers from other parts of the world such as Russia.

Prior to the end of Title 42, U.S. Customs and Border Protection had been making 200 appointment slots available each day to migrants waiting in Tijuana to be processed for asylum. But starting on Friday, the number of daily appointments increased to 240, according to Enrique Lucero, the director for Tijuana’s Migrant Affairs Office.

Juan Francisco Loureiro Esquer, director of the San Juan Bosco migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, said the shelter was preparing for an influx of migrants in the next few days. Shelters in southern Mexico have become empty as migrants begin to make their way north toward the border, he said.

Loureiro Esquer is preparing for a larger influx of migrants when people begin to be deported back to Mexico under Title 8.

About 25 migrants arrived at the shelter at 6 p.m. Thursday. Nearly all of them were Venezuelan migrants who had attempted to cross the border near Matamoros, Mexico, across from Brownsville, Texas.

Roughly 60,000 migrants were waiting near the U.S.-Mexico border in the last hours of Title 42, according to CBS News.

Feelings of uncertainty and fear are prevalent among migrants at the shelter, Loureiro Esquer said. Migrants are unsure of what awaits them at the border now that Title 42 is gone.

“They’re scared,” Loureiro Esquer said.

Migrants welcomed the news of Title 42’s end with a round of applause during a town hall meeting at the Kino Border Initiative migrant shelter. The restrictions and obstacles to asylum that face them, however, may not be any better, advocates say.

The Biden administration finalized a rule that would bar any asylum seekers who did not request and were denied asylum in a country they passed on their way to the southern border. The rule was expected to go into effect Friday.

The new rule heavily restricts migrants’ access to asylum in the U.S., advocates say.

Numerous small Arizona border communities urged the Biden administration to declare a federal emergency declaration to access resources needed for the influx in migrant arrivals. The cities of Douglas, Nogales, San Luis and Somerton, alongside the Yuma County supervisors, called for a federal emergency declaration.

“A federal emergency declaration needs to be considered immediately to address the challenges that come with the end of Title 42 provisions,” San Luis Mayor Nieves Riedel said in a written statement.

The smaller border communities, which often lack the infrastructure needed to transport and house migrants, have been grappling with an increase in arrivals since Monday. The state established five new bus routes to and from the communities in order to avoid street releases.

The routes run from Douglas, Naco and Nogales to the Casa Alitas migrant shelter in Tucson.

The El Paso Times contributed to this article.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Title 42 expired. What to expect Friday at Arizona border