CBP releases migrant border numbers since the end of Title 42

(NBC) - Officials say there has been a "significant reduction in encounters" with migrants along the Southwest border in between ports of entry since the end of Title 42. 

In the first week since Title 42 was lifted, the number of encounters between migrants and authorities at the U.S. southern border has fallen.

According to Customs and Border Protection, there was an average of 4,400 encounters between ports of entry per day since May 12.

Over the past two days, the figure is about three-thousand encounters which the government says is down 70 percent compared to the final two days before the lifting of Title 42.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas credits the enforcement of criminal penalties for migrants who enter the country, those penalties were reinstated after Title 42 came to an end.

President Trump adopted Title 42 during the COVID pandemic and it allowed authorities to quickly expel migrants without an asylum process, but the expelled migrants would not face criminal penalties.