The post-Title-42 lull in border crossings is over

IN THE WEEKS before the end of Title 42, a pandemic rule that made it easy for America to quickly deport undocumented migrants, pundits predicted pandemonium. Newsrooms dispatched reporters to El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California, where they described scenes of migrants waiting to cross the border. “It’s going to be chaotic for a while,” warned President Joe Biden. Yet when Title 42 expired on May 11th, things stayed calm. In fact, migrant encounters recorded by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) fell by more than 70% in the weeks following the policy’s end.