Migrants in Mexico despair; U.S. extends pandemic asylum limits

Haiti migrants wait outside a shelter for legal assistance and medical services as U.S. authorities, blocked by a federal judge from lifting COVID-19 restrictions that empower agents at the U.S.-Mexico border to turn back migrants, continue to enforce the Title 42 rules which result in the fast expulsion of migrants to Mexico or other countries, in Tijuana, Mexico May 23, 2022. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes

Migrants across northern Mexico voiced frustration and desperation on Monday, after the U.S. government failed to lift a pandemic-era policy that has largely prevented them from seeking asylum in the United States for over two years.

An eleventh-hour decision by a federal judge in Louisiana on Friday made it impossible for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to end by Monday the sweeping policy known as Title 42. Since March 2020, Title 42 has empowered U.S. agents to quickly turn back over a million migrants to Mexico and other countries.