Federal agents on standby in case of riots as Title 42 ends

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After days of panic, with thousands of migrants crossing over the southern border in a last-minute attempt to claim asylum before the rules changed, Title 42 has ended.

In the final hours before the pandemic-era measure expired, forces along the border fortified their posts with barbed wire, concrete barriers and heavily armed teams patrolling their front lines.

Agents in tactical gear also held rehearsals for how to deal with rioters or mobs, should migrants attempt to move en masse across the border.

Federal agents also remain on standby in case of riots, sources told The Post.

But after Title 42 ended at midnight, border crossings in Texas and California remained quiet — with migrants remaining on the Mexican side of the border, waiting to be processed.

Despite Customs and Border Patrol apprehending over 10,000 people a day this week, there were an estimated 155,000 people still waiting in north Mexico with the intention of making it into the US, according to CNN.

Texas officials had warned of up to 13,000 people a day attempting to make it into the US after Title 42 ended.

Asylum seekers will now be processed under the earlier Title 8 measure instead.

As the sun set Thursday in Brownsville, Texas, groups of women and children were being helped across the Rio Grande river, which serves as the international boundary.

Some paid 100 Mexican pesos for their children to be escorted over the river on rafts, sources told The Post, adding that they were all being admitted into the US — some of the last to be allowed into the country before new rules took effect.

On the opposite side of the border in San Diego, California, the Border Patrol separated migrants from countries as diverse as Nepal, Jamaica, Bolivia and various African nations into groups Thursday.

They then issued them colored arm tags and began processing them. The various ethnic groups elected their own "captains" to be in charge of collecting supplies like socks and blankets and distributing them among their members.

Although hundreds lined up, not all were granted entry to the US, according to sources.

Title 42 is a federal health measure enforced by the US Border Patrol. It allows the agency to kick certain migrants out of the US and return them to Mexico. This includes asylum seekers, who under international law have the legal right to make an asylum claim in America.

Currently, migrants who cross the border illegally and who are from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua or Venezuela are subject to Title 42 and could be sent to Mexico.

President Donald Trump invoked the law in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, asking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue the policy. The Trump administration made the case that keeping migrants out of the country would slow down the spread of infections and maintain the safety of federal agents encountering migrants.

When President Biden took over, he continued to enforce Title 42 with one important change from his predecessor. Biden said Border Patrol agents were only allowed to expel migrants from certain countries under his direction. That meant migrants seeking asylum from countries like Cuba and Venezuela could still seek asylum if they arrived at the border and stay in the US while their cases were decided in court — unless they had a criminal record.

Title 42 is supposed to be a health policy, not an immigration law. It will end at 11:59 p.m. May 11, when the Biden administration ends all COVID-19-related policies.

Many have called for the policy's end, saying it's illegal and that international law guarantees people the right to seek asylum.

Others, like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, warn that the southern border could see up to 13,000 migrants per day crossing with the intention to stay in the country when the measure ends.

It's unclear exactly how many people have been expelled under Title 42 because there have been scores of people who have attempted to enter the country numerous times and been rejected again and again, but the US Border Patrol said it made an all-time high of more than 2.3 million arrests at the border in the last fiscal year. Forty percent of people who were expelled from the country were ejected under the rules of Title 42.

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As the night grew darker and the Title 42 deadline passed, a somber mood came over groups of migrants huddled together trying to stay warm under thin blankets and pieces of plastic at the San Ysidro border wall in San Diego.

In El Paso, which has been the busiest border crossing in the country for over a year, the city warned residents they would see increased law enforcement throughout the community.

Police presence has been high along the city's border all week.

Bowie High School, within view of the border wall, had at least 10 law enforcement officers on campus Thursday to soothe concerned parents, The Post saw.

International bridges leading from Mexico's Cuidad Juarez into the city — areas where migrants have staged protests and demanded to be let into the country — were narrowed to one lane and fortified on the US side by CBP officers.

El Paso has been dealing with thousands of migrants, mostly from South and Central American, lining up by the border wall and attempting to claim asylum all week, leaving them with oversubscribed shelters, and over 6,000 people in custody — many of whom were cut loose under a directive from Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz issued Wednesday, which was swiftly blocked by a federal judge in Florida on Thursday night.

The order said any shelter over 125% capacity — which was reportedly five out of the nine in the Southwest — would let migrants out into the US under "parole with conditions," and giving them 60 days to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The city's mayor, Oscar Leeser, hoped the migrant surge may not be as overwhelming as previously expected, but said the city must remain vigilant.

"You’ve seen the numbers go down, but we don't know what's coming in the next day," Leeser explained. "We don't know what's coming in the next 10 days. We can't say that the worst is over."

The scene at Border Gate 42 in El Paso was calm early Friday, with about 350 migrants in Mexico waiting to cross into the US.

"Numbers have been going down," a CBP official said. "After 10:00 [12 a.m. ET], we are not going to expel anyone."

Yet migrants along the border and much farther south in Mexico told The Post on Thursday they have no intention of stopping their journeys north just because the Biden administration has enacted tougher laws to keep people out.

"If they don't let people in tonight, they’re not just going to stand there," Leonel Rojas, 20, a Venezuelan lined up at the border wall for his chance to enter the US, told The Post Thursday night.

"People are going to lose their minds and try to find a way to cross."

Alongside 24,000 CBP agents, 1,400 Department of Homeland Security personnel, 1,500 members of the Department of Defense and 550 US troops have been deployed to the border.

Speaking during a press conference Thursday, United States Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas warned that anyone who showed up at the southern border after midnight "will be presumed ineligible for asylum."

"We are ready to process and swiftly remove people without a legal basis to remain in the US," he said in a statement posted to Twitter at midnight. "Do not believe the lies of smugglers. The border is not open."

When migrants are processed under Title 8, they are open to penalties that were not options under Title 42, including deportation.

Mayorkas added there will be "consequences for unlawful entry, including a minimum five-year ban on re-entry and potential criminal prosecution."

The Biden administration has said it will deny asylum claims by those who don't take the necessary steps and apply for asylum in the countries they have traveled through before reaching the US.

It will, however, offer the people a chance to apply for asylum from other countries and allow up to 30,000 people from select counties to come into the US per month.