Border & Immigration

For Texas, the reopening will mean a return of commerce and tourism for hundreds of thousands of daily border travelers across the 28 international bridges that connect the state to its Number 1 trading partner: Mexico.

Nonessential travel has been halted on the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico borders since March 2020. That'll change next month, but vaccines will be required.

The Department of Homeland Security announced its intention to cancel border wall, or border barrier, contracts in Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley. However, the announcement isn’t a guarantee the project won’t proceed in the future.

The announcement is part of a shift in strategy under the Biden administration that puts a new emphasis on going after businesses and employers that violate labor laws.

Eleven Republican governors gathered in Mission, Texas to announce a plan they say President Joe Biden must follow to effectively combat the humanitarian crisis created by the record number of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Timothy Mellon is the Wyoming-based grandson of banking tycoon Andrew Mellon. He is responsible for nearly 98% of the donations to Texas’ border wall fund.

Under the new guidance to ICE and other agencies, simply being present in the U.S. without legal authorization "should not alone be the basis" for immigration authorities to arrest or deport someone.

"They're the biggest law enforcement agencies in the country, and there's no reason why they don't have the resources or the ability to be able to process 15,000 people in a more efficient, orderly way without this chaotic response."

A confluence of factors caused the sudden sharp increase at the Texas town of about 35,000 residents. Interviews with dozens of Haitian migrants, immigration attorneys and advocates reveal a phenomenon produced partly by confusion over the Biden administration’s policies after authorities recently extended protections for the more than 100,000 Haitians living in the United States.

Many Haitian migrants camped in a small Texas border town are being released in the United States, two U.S. officials said, undercutting the Biden administration’s public statements that the thousands in the camp faced immediate expulsion.

"I thought the Haitians were quite scared, and I think there was probably some panic, which resulted in them trying to run around the horses," photographer Paul Ratje says.

To some, this scene represents a broken immigration system that opportunistic migrants are taking advantage of. To others, it presents an opportunity for America to once again welcome people in need from around the world.