A record number of migrants - more than 10,000 - were recently apprehended at the US-Mexico border
in a 24-hour period, fuelling fears over what comes next when a controversial immigration policy expires
this week.
Nowhere are the realities of what some have termed a border "crisis" more evident than in the Texas
city of El Paso.
Here, migrants - many of them confused about the impending rule changes - have been left sleeping
rough in makeshift campsites on city streets over the last several days.
Several thousand were camped out earlier this week around a single church in the city centre.
"We've never seen this before," Mayor Oscar Leeser said at a border security expo just streets away
from the campsite on Wednesday. "Something has to change. As a community, we can't do this
forever."
The worst, officials say, may be yet to come.
US President Joe Biden earlier this week acknowledged that the border would be "chaotic for a while"
despite the best efforts of authorities.
First implemented in 2020, Title 42 allows US authorities to swiftly expel would-be migrants attempting
to cross the border from Mexico - including those seeking humanitarian asylum - using the Covid-19
pandemic as justification.
But with the policy due to expire a minute before midnight on 11 May, officials fear border authorities
may be overwhelmed by an influx of migrants even as record numbers in recent years have already
strained resources and left border towns scrambling for solutions.
Mr Leeser warned that across from El Paso alone, an estimated 10,000 migrants were "lined up at the
border, waiting to come in".
Joe Sanchez, the regional director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, compared the situation to a
stampede at a football game - only many times larger.
"Imagine 60,000 people in one location, and all of a sudden an alert comes on and says there's a bomb
in the building. What happens after that? Chaos… It's very hard to control and very hard to manage," he
told the BBC.
"That's exactly what it's like on the border."
For those migrants - and those already in the US - the future is uncertain.
In a bid to stop the flow, the Biden administration introduced strict new rules for asylum seekers on
Wednesday, including barring those who cross illegally from applying from asylum for five years.
US officials have also announced new changes aimed at encouraging migrants to seek legal pathways to
the country, as well as strict penalties and swift deportation for those who cross illegally.