Migrants, in limbo after Title 42 ends, look to the next steps

But while numbers didn’t peak on Friday, officials said crossings had reached all-time highs in the days before Title 42 ended. On some days of the past week, more than 11,000 people have illegally crossed the southern border, according to internal agency records obtained by The New York Times, leaving the Border Patrol’s shelter facilities overcapacity. In the past two years, about 7,000 people crossed on a normal day; officials consider 8,000 or more an increase.

A person familiar with the situation said fewer than 10,000 people were taken into custody crossing the border on Thursday, indicating the biggest increase may have occurred before Title 42 was lifted, though that remains to be seen. The Biden administration had said it expected as many as 14,000 border crossings daily in the immediate wake of the expiration of the order.

Outside a shelter in McAllen, Texas, Ligia Garcia pondered her family’s next steps. She was elated to finally cross the Rio Grande, but with no family in the United States and no money, they found themselves in the same situation as thousands of other migrants along the Mexican border: waiting, relying on the kindness of strangers.

“We will seek help for now, because we have no money and no choice,” said 31-year-old Ms Garcia, a Venezuelan migrant who is carrying her six-month-old son Roime, near the bulging Catholic Charities shelter. “It was a big sacrifice to get here,” she said, describing how she and her husband traveled through the jungles of Central America and then Mexico with their two children to reach Texas. “But it was worth it. We are in America.”

Eileen Sullivan reporting contributed.