Mayorkas says migrant arrivals have plunged by 50 percent since end of Title 42 trends now
Border Patrol agents have seen a 50 percent drop in the number of migrants crossing from Mexico into the U.S. since Title 42 expired at midnight Thursday, according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Numbers had surged during the run up to the end of the pandemic-restriction, topping more than 10,000 a day.
But Mayorkas said the number dropped to 6,300 encounters on Friday and about 4,200 on Saturday.
'Over the past two days, the United States Border Patrol has experienced a 50 percent drop in the number of encounters versus what we were experiencing earlier in the week before Title 42 ended at midnight on Thursday,' he told CNN's 'State of the Union' program.
'It is still early. We are in day three. But we have been planning for this transition for months and months.'
Border Patrol agents have seen a 50 percent drop in the number of migrants crossing from Mexico into the U.S., according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
This was the scene on Friday morning close to the border wall outside Yuma, Arizona. It was deserted. Some 24 hours earlier the line of migrants waiting to be process was 300-strong
He also appeared on ABC's 'This Week' to push the message that the Biden administration had succeeded in advertising that the nation's borders were not open.
DailyMail.com was at the border in Yuma, Arizona, on Thursday night when hundreds of people raced to cross into the U.S. before Title 42 ended.
But the following morning the place was all but deserted. Experts said they believed migrants and people smuggling gangs were trying to get to grips with a new set of immigration policies.
Mayorkas admitted it was still too early to say that numbers had peaked, but he said Washington's message was getting through.
'We have communicated very clearly a vitally important message to the individuals who are thinking of arriving at our southern border: There is a lawful, safe and orderly way to arrive in the United States,' he said.
'That is through the pathways that President Biden has expanded in an unprecedented way.
'And then there's a consequence if one does not use those lawful pathways, and that consequence is removal from the United States, deportation and encountering a five-year ban on reentry, and possible criminal prosecution.'
Title 42 was activated by the Trump
