CNN Border Correspondent Reports ‘There’s Actually Fewer Migrants’ Than Before Title 42 Ended Friday

CNN correspondent Nick Valencia was stationed at the southwestern border in anticipation of a crush of migrants hours after Title 42 was lifted, but he reported dramatically thinner crowds than the previous day.

Thursday at midnight was the deadline for the lifting of Title 42lifting of Title 42, the Trump era COVID-19 policy that restricted the ability of migrants to remain on US soil as they seek asylum due to the public health emergency. Critics of the Biden administration have been sounding the alarm for a catastrophic wave of migrants, and even President Joe Biden acknowledged he expected there to be some “chaos” at the border following the end of the policy.

But on Friday afternoons edition of CNN News Central, anchor Boris Sanchez tossed to Valencia for a live report from the border, And at least where Valencia was, the crowds not only did materialize but were thinner than before:

SANCHEZ: Now to the deepening crisis at the border under America’s — quote — “broken immigration system.”

Those words from the head of Homeland Security. He’s now in his first day of policing the border without Title 42. That’s the policy that let the U.S. immediately expel migrants, and it expired overnight. Today, like before the pandemic, they have a chance to apply for asylum, but they face much harsher consequences if they try to enter the U.S. illegally.

The rule change has helped drive a record rush of migration to the U.S. border. Border communities are beyond capacity, and several more just today declared states of emergency.

Let’s take you now to the Southern border in Brownsville, Texas, with CNN’s Nick Valencia. He’s been tracking all of the latest developments.

Nick, so Title 42 expired as of midnight last night. Has it made any difference in what you’re seeing where you are in Brownsville?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Boris, there’s actually fewer migrants being processed today than this same time yesterday.

I spoke to Team Brownsville, which is the main nonprofit here that helps out migrants after they arrive to the city. And they say, at noon Eastern, they had processed just one bus of — one immigration bus of those that had been released on humanitarian parole. At this same time yesterday, they had about five.

Now, just in the last hour, we did see a second bus. And you see some migrants did wake up on the streets this morning. But there are very thin crowds here. This morning, there was several dozen migrants that were sleeping on the street. That crowd has obviously woken up and gotten about their day.

But the crowds are a lot thinner than they were yesterday. We have been bringing you migrant stories all week, and we want to continue to do that.

Watch above via CNN News Central.