At points along the US-Mexico border on Friday, crowds of migrants clutching sacks of belongings or holding the hands of children waited to seek asylum as new immigration rules came into effect. And more and more people came.
A three-year-old asylum restriction known as Title 42 ended and was replaced by new rules imposed by the Biden administration.
Many migrants on both sides of the border had been waiting for days. In San Diego, a woman holding a baby held up a wristband to a US border guard to say she was one of the longest waiting.
Other people peered out from where they were held between two border walls. A group of men huddled under emergency heating blankets. And some kids spent the long hours kicking an empty water bottle around in an impromptu game of soccer.
Border agents managed long queues of migrants and watched over crowds of people waiting to be processed by immigration authorities. In El Paso, Texas, lines of migrants waited in the dust outside a gate in the border fence.
In Brownsville, Texas, volunteers arrived at a border point and handed out pizza to those detained there.
Outside the city, members of the Texas National Guard stood next to coils of barbed wire to watch for illegal crossings.
And in the border town of Matamoros, Mexico, across the Rio Grande River from Brownsville, migrant families continued to arrive in hopes of reaching the United States. A small group that had received approval from a charitable organization was escorted across a bridge to the US by a Mexican immigration officer
