SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – Title 42 ends Thursday, the public health order put in place by the Trump Administration that allowed authorities to turn away migrants at the border, citing COVID-19 concerns.

Many immigrant rights advocates argued officials were using public health as a pretext to keep as many immigrants out of the country as possible. There are 65,000 migrants in Northern Mexico waiting to cross. The government has sent 1,500 unarmed active duty troops to support border patrol agents. So what lead to the end of this policy?

The Biden Administration announced in January that it was ending the national emergencies linked to the pandemic. Without Title 42 in place, US immigration authorities will return to decades-old protocols at a time when a historic number of people are seeking asylum in the United States.

President Biden is set to revert back to the Title 8 immigration law which encourage migrants
to use legal pathways instead of crossing the border. Under this system, migrants are either removed from the country, detained or released into the U.S. while their cases make their way through immigration court, which can take years.

22News spoke with State Rep. Carlos Gonzalez about what’s happening at the state level to address this ongoing humanitarian crisis, “We’re seeing residents from Mexico, from Haiti and other countries coming in. We’ve increase some funding to make sure that we can provide shelter but assistance through our local cities and towns for educational purposes as well as medical health insurance, for individuals who are newly arrivals here.”

Starting Friday, asylum seekers will begin an interview process and those who are found to have a “credible fear” of being persecuted in their home countries can stay in the U.S. until a final determination is made.

The Biden Administration is set to make a major change, preparing to direct border patrol agents to release migrants into the U.S. without an immigration court date and with no way to keep tabs on them.