Eerie scenes in Arizona show the border wall deserted after Title 42 expired

The United States on Friday ended a COVID-19 border restriction that had blocked many migrants at its border with Mexico, sparking a struggle to get in during the night that had evaporated by dawn.

A waiting area at the border wall outside Yuma, Arizona, which was filled with lines of migrants Thursday evening, was empty at dawn.

The only reminder of a spate of arrivals as the clock ticked towards the title 42 deadline was a dumpster filled with discarded water bottles and a mess of footprints in the sand.

Local officials said everyone — from border guard agents to migrants and the cartels that control people-smuggling operations — was trying to understand what came after the end of Title 42 and the introduction of a slew of new rules.

“I expect people are still trying to figure out what this means and how this will play out,” Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines said.

This was the scene on Friday morning close to the border wall outside of Yuma, Arizona. It was deserted. About 24 hours earlier, the queue of migrants waiting for trial was 300 strong

Predictions of chaos also failed to materialize in other border towns, such as El Paso, Texas.

However, that does not mean that the crisis is over. Days of rising migration have pushed reception facilities well beyond capacity.

Officials told DailyMail.com that border detention facilities have held up to 28,000 people, while the number at the border has exceeded 10,000 a day.

Border towns say they cannot continue to process arrivals, screen and allocate court dates to process their asylum applications.

The city of Yuma was preparing to release more than 140 migrants into the streets on Friday to ease pressure on its processing system — the first such releases in two years.

Thursday night brought another wave of arrivals to the Arizona border. A large group of Peruvians rounded the edge of the border wall with an hour left before the end of Title 42.

They were followed 45 minutes later by another large group. Among them were dozens of young men in Senegal who fled.

Even after Title 42 expired, they kept trickling in. At one point there were over 200 people waiting to be processed.

The end of Title 42 brought a wave of arrivals on Thursday night as the clock ticked toward midnight easterly time. Senegalese, Mauritanians, and Peruvians were among two major groups that entered Yuma land just under the barbed wire. Dozens more trickled in

A couple with a young baby clambered up an embankment on Thursday when they arrived on American soil

The arrivals have placed unprecedented strain on Yuma’s facilities. The city is expected to release more than 140 unprocessed migrants on Friday

Unofficial figures put the number of arrests at 1,500 for the day, the highest in recent weeks.

Doom-mongers had warned it would only get worse on Friday. But arrivals dried up in several sectors.

Chris Clem, the former Yuma Sector Chief Border Patrol Agent, said it was too early to celebrate.

“The administration is undoubtedly working feverishly behind the scenes with Mexico. I’m sure they’re doing a lot of things to get this done,” he said

“And I do believe that they will control things and play things out.

“Then maybe the migrants are, you know, trying to figure it out. Do they want to be swept up in the hustle and bustle? Do they want to wait a few days to see how it turns out?’

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas explained on Thursday that the end of Title 42 meant migrants would now be processed under Title 8

Anyway, he said he couldn’t get over the fact that the numbers of border facilities were as high as he could remember.

Title 42 was activated by the Trump administration to contain the spread of COVID-19. It is a public health measure that allows border authorities to immediately deport arrivals before they can even apply for asylum.

But now that the pandemic was over, it ended at midnight eastern time on Thursday.

The Biden administration rushed through new restrictions, effectively reinstating Trump’s “transit ban,” which allows for the deportation of arrivals who did not seek asylum in countries they traveled through.

Migrants can legally report to the border if they have used a mobile app, CBP One, to pre-register.

But there were snags. An 11th-hour legal challenge blocked plans to speed up the release of migrants from Border Patrol detention.

Administrative officials also said it was too early to declare victory.

“Overnight we saw similar patterns to what we’ve seen in recent days. We continue to see large numbers of non-citizens at the border, but we did not see a substantial overnight increase or a midnight influx,” said Blas Nuñez-Neto, the Department’s deputy secretary for border and immigration policy. of Homeland Security, to reporters at a briefing call.

“However, it is still early days and our focus remains the same: processing people safely and humanely, but now with extra tools to be able to draw consequences quickly.”