Explained | Why are migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers?

What is happening at the U.S.-Mexico border now and why are there record numbers of crossings?

U.S. President Joe Biden is visiting the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time since he took office in January 2021 on Sunday, ahead of a visit to Mexico and after announcing new measures to reduce border crossings.

U.S. Border Patrol made more than 2.2 million arrests at the U.S.-Mexico in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended last September, the most ever recorded.

But many of those were individual migrants who tried to cross multiple times after being caught and rapidly expelled back to Mexico under a COVID-era order known as Title 42.

The policy was implemented in March 2020 under Republican former President Donald Trump, an immigration hardliner. Biden, a Democrat, tried to end the Title 42 order, which health officials said was no longer needed, but the termination was blocked in court.

Before last year, Mexico had generally only been accepting expulsions of its own citizens along with migrants from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The number of Venezuelans crossing the border plummeted after Mexico agreed to accept expulsions of Venezuelan migrants last October.

Biden announced on Thursday that Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans - who have also been arriving in larger numbers - will now also be expelled under Title 42.

Also Read | Fallout of policy failure: On the U.S. migrant tragedy