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After days of anticipation, there was a relative sense of calm, if also uncertainty, in the minutes and hours that followed the expiration of Title 42.
The pandemic-era policy severely limited immigration to the U.S., nearly halting the processing of asylum applications for over three years.
As the policy was formally lifted on Thursday at 11:59 p.m. ET, security officials were bracing for an unprecedented influx of migrants along the southern U.S. border — some estimates suggested as many as 150,000 migrants might arrive in the hopes of crossing over.
Instead, the number of border crossings remained steady, according to Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Blas Nuñez-Neto.
«Overnight, we saw similar patterns to what we’ve seen over the past several days,» he told reporters during a midday briefing call on Friday. «We continue to encounter high levels of non-citizens at the border but we did not see a substantial increase overnight or an influx at midnight.»
Though the anticipation may have been overblown, Friday still marked the start of a new era of immigration — a change that may take months to come into clearer focus.
NPR and member station reporters spent Friday observing the start of that change from the U.S.-Mexico border, across the country and inside the halls of power. Here’s some of what they saw: Migrants, afraid and confused, weighed whether to cross
For migrants along the Juárez–El Paso border, there was an understanding that Title 42 had lifted, but confusion remained about what that would mean for the future.
Alejandra Gonzalez fled Venezuela with her husband and stepson. She told NPR that they tried to turn themselves into border patrol in El Paso before the policy ended. But, after waiting out in the hot sun for days, she said, they never got the chance.
Now, they’re back in Ciudad Juárez — sleeping in a tent on the street and afraid to try crossing again.
«If we turned ourselves in, we might be deported or detained or jailed,» Gonzalez said in Spanish. «And I feel a lot of doubt and fear.»
In the early morning hours of Friday, Raquel Garrido, 23, stood on the banks of the Rio Grande river in Matamoros, assessing whether to wade through the waters with her 10-month-old baby.
Dozens of other migrants living in an encampment in Matamoros decided to swim across the Rio Grande to enter the U.
