New photos this week show crowds of migrants gathering at the U.S. southern border ahead of the expiration of Title 42 on Thursday.
Crowds are forming along the United States-Mexico border in anticipation of the lapse of Title 42, a pandemic-era rule that allowed agents to turn illegal migrants away. President Joe Biden, who acknowledged the border will be "chaotic" in the coming weeks, will allow migrants to be released into the country with no court dates or methods of tracking. Officials warned that hundreds of thousands of migrants are waiting to cross the border to enter the country.
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An administration official said 24,000 border police and 1,100 border processing personnel are deployed to the border, double the number from a year ago.
"Border Patrol shared with us their intelligence that there are approximately 700,000, as of three weeks ago, in the shelters in Mexico waiting to come into the United States," Jonathan Lines, supervisor on Arizona’s Yuma County Board of Supervisors, said last week. He added that border officials said there is a 500 percent increase in migrants crossing the Darién Gap, which connects South and Central America.
Lines added that currently 40 percent of illegal migrants that cross in Yuma are immediately turned away because of Title 42.
Past estimates projected daily border crossings after Title 42 lapses to hit 15,000, which totals more than five million annually.