Washington, DC — The Biden administration stated on Thursday that it will establish migrant processing centres in Latin America, intensify deportations, and expand legal migration channels in an effort to limit the number of people illegally crossing the US-Mexico border.

The moves are part of the administration's effort to reduce and slow migration to the US-Mexico border, where officials are preparing to end a pandemic-era policy known as Title 42, which has allowed them to quickly expel migrants over 2.7 million times without processing their asylum claims since March 2020.

Title 42 will come to an end on May 11th, when the national COVID-19 public health emergency expires. Internal estimations indicate that migrant arrivals at the southern border could reach 10,000 to 13,000 per day next month.

In fact, a senior US source told CBS News that illegal border crossings had already spiked in the run-up to the policy shift, particularly in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. According to the source, the Border Patrol apprehended 7,500 migrants on Tuesday alone, a more than 40% increase from the daily average in March.

The physical processing centres announced Thursday will serve as regional hubs for screening migrants and determining their eligibility for various legal entry options into the United States, including traditional refugee resettlement, family visa programmes, a sponsorship initiative for certain countries, and temporary work visas.

The centres would be positioned in important Latin American choke points where many migrants transit en route to the United States' southern border, beginning with Colombia and Guatemala. According to senior administration officials, the United States is "in discussions" with other countries about expanding the number of processing centres.

According to senior US officials who requested anonymity to discuss the plan during a press briefing, migrants processed at regional hubs will also be vetted for eligibility to remain in the hosting country or to be resettled in Canada or Spain, which have agreed to accept referrals from the centres. The establishment of the immigration centres was originally revealed by CBS News on Wednesday.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said during a joint press conference with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that the regional processing hubs will serve between 5,000 and 6,000 migrants each month.

"We're collaborating with our regional partners." We're on the hunt for smugglers. We are deploying additional resources to the border. "However, we won't be able to do everything we need to do until Congress provides the necessary resources and reforms," Mayorkas said.

On Thursday, the government also announced that it will expand a family reunion programme that now permits Haitians and Cubans to enter the United States once the administration has granted immigrant visa requests from family members who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

This programme will be expanded to include Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, allowing citizens of those countries to enter the United States under humanitarian parole authority before their immigrant visas become available, if their U.S.-based relatives' requests to sponsor them for a visa are approved.

To discourage illegal crossings after Title 42 expires, the Biden administration is working to finalise a rule that would disqualify migrants from asylum if they enter the country illegally after failing to seek humanitarian protection in a third country they transited through on their way to the United States. 

Officials argue that the policy, which resembles a Trump administration rule, will discourage illegal crossings and encourage migrants to apply for two initiatives announced in January: a sponsorship programme that allows up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to fly to the United States each month, and a phone app that asylum-seekers in Mexico can use to request entry at ports of entry along the southern border.

The Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday that the number of weekly deportation flights to certain nations would double or triple. According to a senior administration official, the United States is contemplating a "significant" increase in expedited removals to impose "stiffer consequences" on people who enter the country illegally.

The US wants to continue deporting Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to Mexico until Title 42 is lifted, according to the official. Deportations would be carried out under immigration law rather than Title 42, and deportees would be barred from returning to the United States for five years. If they try to cross the border after being deported, they could face criminal charges, according to the official.

The Biden administration also initiated an endeavour earlier this month to expedite the initial asylum assessments that refugees face when they are processed under standard immigration procedures rather than Title 42. While in Border Patrol custody, migrants registered in the programme are being interrogated by US asylum officers over the phone.