But things went terribly wrong when they drove back from Tijuana last month.

U.S. border agents handcuffed Tyler, a U.S. citizen, and chained her to a bench, while her fiancé, Lucas Sielaff, was accused of violating the rules of his 90-day U.S. tourist permit, the couple said. Authorities later handcuffed and shackled Sielaff and sent him to a crowded U.S. immigration detention center. He spent 16 days locked up before being allowed to fly home to Germany.

Since President Donald Trump took office, there have been other incidents of tourists like Sielaff being stopped at U.S. border crossings and held for weeks at U.S. immigration detention facilities before being allowed to fly home at their own expense.

They include another German tourist who was stopped at the Tijuana crossing on Jan. 25. Jessica Brösche spent over six weeks locked up, including over a week in solitary confinement, a friend said.

On the Canadian border, a backpacker from Wales spent nearly three weeks at a detention center before flying home this week. And a Canadian woman on a work visa detained at the Tijuana border spent 12 days in detention before returning home last weekend.

Sielaff, 25, and the others say it was never made clear why they were taken into custody even after they offered to go home voluntarily.

Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s US-Mexico border program, a nonprofit that aids migrants, said in the 22 years he has worked on the border he’s never seen travelers from Western Europe and Canada, longtime U.S. allies, locked up like this.

“It’s definitely unusual with these cases so close together, and the rationale for detaining these people doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It doesn’t justify the abhorrent treatment and conditions” they endured.

“The only reason I see is there is a much more fervent anti-immigrant atmosphere,” Rios said.

Of course, tourists from countries where the U.S. requires visas — many of them non-Western nations — have long encountered difficulties entering the U.S.

U.S. authorities did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for figures on how many tourists have recently been held at detention facilities or explain why they weren’t simply denied entry.

Weekslong lockups fuel anxieties about tourist travel to US

The incidents are fueling anxiety as the Trump administration prepares for a ban on travelers from some countries. Noting the “evolving” federal travel policies, the University of California, Los Angeles sent a notice this week urging its foreign-born students and staff to consider the risks of travel for spring break, warning “re-entry requirements may change while you are away, impacting your return.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in an email to the AP that Sielaff and Brösche, who was held for 45 days, “were deemed inadmissible” by Customs and Border Protection. That agency said it cannot discuss specifics but “if statutes or visa terms are violated, travelers may be subject to detention and removal.” The agencies did not comment on the other cases.

Both German tourists were allowed into the United States under a program offered to a select group of countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, whose citizens are allowed to travel to the U.S. for business or leisure for up to 90 days without getting a visa in advance. Applicants register online with the Electronic System for Travel Authorization.

But even if they are authorized to travel under that system, U.S. authorities have wide discretion to still deny entry. Following the detentions, Britain and Germany updated their travel advisories to alert people about the strict U.S. border enforcement. The United Kingdom warned “you may be liable to arrest or detention if you break the rules.”

Sielaff arrived in the U.S. on Jan. 27. He and Tyler decided to go to Tijuana for four days in mid-February because Tyler’s dog needed surgery and veterinary services are cheaper there. They figured they would enjoy some tacos and make a fun trip out of it.

“Mexico is a wonderful and beautiful country that Lucas and I love to visit,” Tyler said.

They returned Feb. 18, just 22 days into Sielaff’s 90-day tourist permit.

When they pulled up to the crossing, the U.S. border agent asked Sielaff aggressively, “Where are you going? Where do you live?” Tyler said.

“English is not Lucas’ first language and so he said, ‘We’re going to Las Vegas,’ and the agent says, ’Oh, we caught you. You live in Las Vegas. You can’t do that,’” Tyler said.

Sielaff was taken away for more questioning. Tyler said she asked to go with him or if he could get a translator and was told to be quiet, then taken out of her car and handcuffed and chained to a bench. Her dog, recovering from surgery, was left in the car.

After four hours, Tyler was allowed to leave but said she was given no information about her fiancé’s whereabouts.

During questioning, Sielaff said he told authorities he never lived in the U.S. and had no criminal history. He said he was given a full-body search and ordered to hand over his cellphone and belongings. He was put in a holding cell where he slept on a bench for two days before being transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.

There, he said, he shared a cell with eight others.

“You are angry, you are sad, you don’t know when you can get out,” Sielaff said. “You just don’t get any answers from anybody.”

He was finally told to get a direct flight to Germany and submit a confirmation number. In a frantic call from Sielaff, Tyler bought it for $2,744. He flew back March 5.

‘A blatant abuse’ of US border authorities’ power, victims say

“What happened at the border was just blatant abuse of the Border Patrol’s power,” Tyler said.

Ashley Paschen agrees. She said she learned about Brösche from a TikTok video asking anyone in the San Diego area for help after her family learned she was being held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center. Paschen visited her several times and told her people were working to get her out. Brosche flew home March 11.

“She’s happy to be home,” Paschen said. “She seems very relieved if anything but she’s not coming back here anytime soon.”

On Feb. 26, a tourist from Wales, Becky Burke, a backpacker traveling across North America, was stopped at the U.S.-Canada border and held for nearly three weeks at a detention facility in Washington state, her father, Paul Burke, posted on Facebook. She returned home Tuesday.

On March 3, Canadian Jasmine Mooney, an actress and entrepreneur on a U.S. work visa, was detained at the Tijuana crossing. She was released Saturday, her friend Brittany Kors said.

Before Mooney’s release, British Columbia Premier David Eby expressed concern, saying: “It certainly reinforces anxiety that … many Canadians have about our relationship with the U.S. right now, and the unpredictability of this administration and its actions.”

The detentions come amid legal fights over the Trump administration’s arrests and deportations of other foreigners with valid visas and green card holders, including a Palestinian activist who helped organize campus protests of the war in Gaza.

Tyler plans to sue the U.S. government.

Sielaff said he and Tyler are now rethinking plans to hold their wedding in Las Vegas. He suffers nightmares and is considering therapy to cope with the trauma.

“Nobody is safe there anymore to come to America as a tourist,” he said.

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McALLEN, Texas (AP) — A recent decline in arrests for illegal crossings on the U.S. border with Mexico may prove only temporary. The drop in January reflects how the numbers ebb and flow, and the reason usually goes beyond any single factor.

After a record-breaking number of encounters at the southern border in December, crossings dropped by half last month, authorities reported Tuesday. The largest decrease was in the Del Rio sector that includes Eagle Pass, Texas, the main focus of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s recent border enforcement efforts. Mexico also increased enforcement efforts during that time after talks with U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration.

A look at the numbers and what’s behind them:

WHAT DO THE NUMBERS SAY?

Overall, arrests by U.S. Border Patrol dropped in January by 50% from 249,735 in December, the highest monthly tally on record.

Tucson, Arizona, was again the busiest sector for illegal crossings with 50,565 arrests, down 37% from December, followed by San Diego. Arrests in the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector plummeted 76% from December to 16,712, the lowest since December 2021. Arrests in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, dropped 60% to 7,340, the lowest since July 2020.

A significant decrease was noted among Venezuelans whose arrests dropped by 91% to 4,422 from 46,920. But those numbers could change soon. Panama reported that 36,001 migrants traversed the dangerous Darien Gap in January, up 46% from December. The vast majority who cross the Panamanian jungle are Venezuelans headed to the United States, with considerable numbers from Haiti, China, Ecuador and Colombia.

WHAT IS MEXICO DOING?

Mexico has been forcing migrants from freight trains that they sometimes use to cross the country to get closer to the U.S. border. Immigration officers in Mexico also have been busing migrants to that country’s southern border and flying some back to their countries.

That enforcement effort began after a visit from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Mexico City on Dec. 28.

Mexican border states such as Coahuila partnered with Mexico’s federal government. By January, members of Mexico’s military and national guard were patrolling the banks of the Rio Grande. Officers filled buses with migrants and drove them away from Piedras Negras, which is on the Mexican side of the river across from Eagle Pass.

WHAT IS TEXAS DOING?

Over in Eagle Pass, the Texas National Guard took over a city-owned park along the river. Texas has denied U.S. agents access to Shelby Park since Jan. 10. It also installed additional razor wire and anti-climbing fencing in the area.

Border Patrol agents had previously used the park for monitoring and patrols, as well as to process migrants who made it across the river to U.S. soil. Migrants who are seeking asylum are released to await immigration court proceedings that can take years.

“What you have is this magnet,” Mike Banks, Texas’ border czar, said. “You’re basically saying, `Cross the river right here. Get across and we’ll process immediately and release you.’ So again, that’s a pull factor. So we’ve taken that pull factor away.”

WHAT ELSE IMPACTS THE NUMBERS?

The number of people trying to make the journey often increases when the weather is warmer in the U.S. and decreases during the colder months. Since 2021, crossings on the southern border increase by an average of 40% from January to March, according to federal data from the last three years.

Another factor last year was the end of COVID-19 restrictions in May. The use of a public health policy known as Title 42 allowed the Trump and Biden administrations to turn asylum-seekers back to Mexico, even if they were not from that country.

Crossings fell dramatically for a month after Title 42 ended and the Biden administration enforced new rules.

Under Title 42 migrants were denied asylum more than 2.8 million times starting in March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19. When Title 42 expired, the Biden administration launched a policy to deny asylum to people who travel through another country, such as Mexico, to the U.S., with few exceptions.

However, the numbers eventually started climbing until reaching December’s record high.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed Border Patrol agents to resume cutting for now razor wire that Texas installed along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border that is at the center of an escalating standoff between the Biden administration and the state over immigration enforcement.

The 5-4 vote clears the way for Border Patrol agents to cut or clear out concertina wire that Texas has put along the banks of the Rio Grande to deter migrants from entering the U.S. illegally. Some migrants have been injured by the sharp wire and the Justice Department has argued the barrier impedes the U.S. government’s ability to patrol the border, including coming to the aid of migrants in need of help.

None of the justices provided any explanation for their vote. The one-page order is a victory for the Biden administration while the lawsuit over the wire continues.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had authorized the wire, one of a series of aggressive measures the three-term Republican has taken on the border in the name of curbing illegal crossings from Mexico. His spokesman said the absence of razor wire and other deterrents encourages migrants to risk unsafe crossings and makes the job of Texas border personnel more difficult.

“This case is ongoing, and Governor Abbott will continue fighting to defend Texas’ property and its constitutional authority to secure the border,” Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said.

A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately return a message seeking comment Monday.

A federal appeals court last month had forced federal agents to stop cutting the concertina wire.

The concertina wire stretches for roughly 30 miles (48 kilometers) near the border city of Eagle Pass, where earlier this month the Texas Military Department seized control of a city-owned park and began denying access to Border Patrol agents.

Eagle Park has become one of the busiest spots on the southern U.S. border for migrants illegally crossing from Mexico. Abbott has said Texas won’t allow Border Patrol agents into Shelby Park anymore, having expressed frustration over what he says are migrants illegally entering through Eagle Pass and then federal agents loading them onto buses.

Abbott also has authorized installing floating barriers in the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass and allowed troopers to arrest and jail thousands of migrants on trespassing charges. The administration also is challenging those actions in federal court.

In court papers, the administration said the wire impedes Border Patrol agents from reaching migrants as they cross the river and that, in any case, federal immigration law trumps Texas’ own efforts to stem the flow of migrants into the country.

Texas officials have argued that federal agents cut the wire to help groups crossing illegally through the river before taking them in for processing.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor sided with the administration. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas voted with Texas.

___ Weber reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press writer Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.

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EDINBURG, Texas (AP) — Donald Trump picked up the Texas governor’s endorsement Sunday during a visit to a U.S.-Mexico border town and promised that his hard-line immigration policies in a second presidential term would make Greg Abbott’s “job much easier.”

“You’ll be able to focus on other things in Texas,” Trump told Abbott as they each appeared before a crowd of about 150 at an airport hangar in Edinburg.

Abbott, a longtime ally and fellow border hawk, said he was proud to endorse the former president, who is the Republican Party’s front-runner for the 2024 nomination.

“We need a president who’s going to secure the border,” Abbott said, speaking in a town that is about 30 miles from the Hidalgo Port of Entry crossing with Mexico. “We need Donald J. Trump back as our president of the United States of America.”

Earlier, Trump served meals to Texas National Guard soldiers, troopers and others who will be stationed at the border over Thanksgiving. Trump and Abbott handed out tacos, and the former president shook hands and posed for pictures.

“What you do is incredible, and you want it to be done right,” Trump told them.

Abbott said about the Guard members and Texas troopers who are stationed at the border: “They should not be here at this time. They should be at home.” He said that ”the only reason why they are here is because we have a president of the United States of America who is not securing our border.”

Trump has been laying out immigration proposals that would mark a dramatic escalation of the approach he used in office and that drew alarms from civil rights activists and numerous court challenges. Though Trump has peppered campaign speeches with his immigration plans, he only made brief remarks in border country on Sunday. He spoke for only about 10 minutes against a backdrop of state police choppers, a plane and an armed patrol boat — all used by Texas at the border.

Trump did not get into the policies he would pursue if elected. He did complain about inflation, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and news media coverage. He said most technology outside of wheels and walls eventually becomes obsolete.

“We just need the walls. And it worked,” Trump said.

His plan calls for building more of the wall along the border.

He also wants to:

— revive and expand his controversial travel ban, which initially targeted seven Muslim-majority countries. Trump’s initial executive order was fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld what Trump complained was a “watered down” version that included travelers from North Korea and some Venezuelan officials.

— begin new “ideological screening” for all immigrants, aiming to bar “Christian-hating communists and Marxists” and “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots and maniacs” from entering the United States. “Those who come to and join our country must love our country,” he has said.

— bar those who support Hamas. “If you empathize with radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified,” Trump says. “If you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified. If you support Hamas or any ideology that’s having to do with that or any of the other really sick thoughts that go through people’s minds — very dangerous thoughts — you’re disqualified.”

— deport immigrants living in the country who harbor “jihadist sympathies” and send immigration agents to “pro-jihadist demonstrations” to identify violators. He would target foreign nationals on college campuses and revoke the student visas of those who express anti-American or antisemitic views.

— invoke the Alien Enemies Act to to remove from the United States all known or suspected gang members and drug dealers. That law was used to justify internment camps in World War II. It allows the president to unilaterally detain and deport people who are not U.S. citizens.

— end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship by signing an executive order his first day in office that would codify a legally untested reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment. Under his order, only children with at least one U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident parent would be eligible for a passport, Social Security number and other benefits.

— terminate all work permits and cut off funding for shelter and transportation for people who are in the country illegally.

— crack down on legal asylum-seekers and reimplement measures such as Title 42, which allowed Trump to turn away immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

— press Congress to pass a law so anyone caught trafficking women or children would receive the death penalty.

— shift federal law enforcement agents, including FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration personnel, to immigration enforcement, and reposition at the southern border thousands of troops currently stationed overseas. “Before we defend the borders of foreign countries we must secure the border of our country,” he said said.

Trump has made frequent trips to the border as a candidate and president. During his 2016 campaign, he traveled to Laredo, Texas in July 2015 for a visit that highlighted how his views on immigration helped him win media attention and support from the GOP base.

The border has also become a centerpiece of Abbott’s agenda and the subject of an escalating fight with the Biden administration over immigration. The three-term governor has approved billions of dollars in new border wall construction, authorized razor wire on the banks of the Rio Grande and bused thousands of migrants to Democrat-led cities across the United States.

Abbott is expected to soon sign what would be one of Texas’ most aggressive measures to date: a law that allows police officers to arrest migrants suspected of entering the country illegally and empowers judges to effectively deport them. The measure is a dramatic challenge to the U.S. government’s authority over immigration. It already has already drawn rebuke from Mexico.

Still, the Texas GOP’s hard right has not always embraced Abbott. Trump posted on his social media platform earlier this year that the governor was “MISSING IN ACTION!” after Republicans voted to impeach Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Trump ally. Abbott was also booed at a 2022 Trump rally.

But Abbott’s navigation within the GOP has built him broad support in Texas, where he has outperformed more strident Republicans down-ballot and helped the GOP make crucial inroads with Hispanic voters.

Democrats tried to use the trip to portray Trump’s plans as extreme.

“Donald Trump is going after immigrants, our rights our safety and our democracy. And that is what really is on the ballot last year,” Biden reelection campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said on a conference call with reporters.

Pollings show many voters aren’t satisfied with the Biden administration’s handling of the border.

A Marquette Law School poll of registered voters conducted in late September gave Trump a 24-point advantage over Biden on handling immigration and border security issues — 52% to 28%.

___ Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writer Will Weissert in Wilmington, Delaware, contributed to this report.

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MIAMI (AP) — The ad sounds like something out of the GOP 2024 playbook, trumpeting a senator’s work with Republicans to crack down on the flow of fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the U.S., getting tough on Chinese interests helping smugglers, and noting how he “wrote a bill signed by Donald Trump to increase funding for Border Patrol.”

It’s actually a commercial for Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat facing a tough reelection fight that will help decide control of the Senate.

“Ohioans trust Sherrod Brown to keep us safe,” says the narrator of the ad, sponsored by the Democrat-aligned Duty and Country PAC. His campaign declined to comment.

The message is one more indication of the political and security challenges the U.S.-Mexico border has presented for President Joe Biden. Some Democrats across the country are distancing themselves from the White House, and polls indicate widespread frustration with Biden’s handling of immigration and the border, creating a major liability for the president’s re-election next year.

The Biden administration this week took two actions seen by many as moving to the right on immigration.

The Department of Homeland Security waived environmental and other reviews to construct new portions of a border wall in South Texas after Biden pledged during the 2020 campaign that he would build “not another foot” of wall. And U.S. officials said they would resume deportations to Venezuela not long after the administration increased protected status for thousands of people from the country.

Both moves inflamed conservatives and liberals alike. Many Republicans accused Biden of being too late to adopt former President Donald Trump’s ideas on a border wall, while liberals who oppose additional border restrictions accused the White House of betraying campaign pledges.

“My frustration has been that we are not addressing immigration in a holistic way as a country. We are depending on the president alone,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas, a Democrat who represents the border city of El Paso and is a national co-chair of the Biden re-election campaign. “We are treating people from different nationalities in a different way. And the pathways that have been created are being challenged in court consistently.”

Biden has said his administration moved forward with the border wall because it was required by Congress during the Trump administration, even though he considers it ineffective. His reelection campaign pointed to Trump’s record at the border, including his administration’s practice of separating immigrant families as a deterrence measure and the temporary detention of children in warehouses in chain-link cells.

“MAGA Republicans are running on the legacy of Donald Trump’s playbook of family separation, caging kids, and shouting ‘border!’ without any serious solutions,” said Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Biden’s reelection campaign, referring to supporters of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

Border crossings hit two-decade highs under Trump but fell during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, with immigration authorities expelling most border crossers using public health authority known as Title 42.

Upon taking office, Biden paused border wall construction and canceled the Trump administration’s “ Remain in Mexico ” program, but kept expelling many people under Title 42 until this past May.

Still, border crossings are now skyrocketing, which some observers blame on his administration for creating the perception that the border was open. The White House counters that migration has surged across the Western Hemisphere due to regional challenges out of the administration’s control.

Conservative media outlets often spotlight border crossings and blame Biden for creating what they say is a crisis. But Biden has taken criticism from many in his own party, including Democratic mayors and governors who want more help caring for newly arriving migrants.

Republican-led border states started busing thousands of immigrants to Democratic-led cities across the country, creating in many places a huge shortage of space that’s led to makeshift shelters and camps.

In Chicago, O’Hare International Airport is now housing hundreds of migrants from babies to the elderly at a shuttle bus center. They sleep on cardboard pads on the floor and share airport bathrooms.

New York Mayor Eric Adams went to Mexico this week to implore would-be migrants not to come. He has accused the Biden administration of not providing enough money or resources for the city to process migrants, telling reporters this summer, “The president and the White House have failed New York City on this issue.”

Polling suggests that Americans across the political spectrum — even some people sympathetic to immigration — are concerned.

A Marquette Law School poll of registered voters conducted in late September gave Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination, a 24-point advantage over Biden on handling immigration and border security issues — 52% to 28%.

The Republican focus on immigration and the border didn’t stop Democrats from big victories in the 2018 midterms and Biden and Democrats beat expectations during last year’s election as well, keeping the Senate and losing the House by a tiny margin to Republicans. But there were some troubling signs even then.

About six in 10 voters then said they disapproved of how Biden was handling the issue of border security, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping national survey of the electorate. Some 27% of Democrats disapproved of how Biden was handling the border, with one-third of Democrats who identify as moderate or conservative saying this was an issue where they disapproved of Biden’s performance, according to VoteCast.

Border security was also a weak spot for Biden among independents, with 66% saying they disapproved.

Sixty-one percent of Democrats said they wanted stronger law enforcement at the border, as did two-thirds of Latino or Hispanic voters (65%).

Escobar, who is a leading Hispanic voice for the Biden campaign, said she is concerned that immigration could hurt the president’s re-election efforts.

“There is going to be a tendency to blame the White House when in fact this has been a failure on Congress,” she said. The last major immigration reform approved by Congress was in 1990.

Auri Lugo, a 31-year-old Venezuelan who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, said she thought resuming deportations was the right thing to do, adding that federal authorities should focus on expediting applications for family-based immigrant visas and the humanitarian parole program. That allows up to 30,000 people to enter the country from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Lugo, who arrived in the U.S. six years ago and has legal residency, was able to bring her 9-year-old son from Venezuela last year through the humanitarian parole program. But she’s been unable to bring her mother, who was the boy’s caregiver since he was 2 years old.

“I think it’s a good thing that they are taking action on the matter,” she said. “There are a lot of Venezuelans who are in shelters, who are not working. They do not have a work permit. So they are on the streets.”

Despite his 2020 promises on the border, Biden has long been more moderate on the issue than some in his party. As a senator, he voted for legislation to expand U.S.-Mexico border fencing and supported authorizing federal seizure for the construction of new barriers.

He was also vice president to Barack Obama, whose administration set records for the number of people in the country illegally who were deported, earning the president the nickname “ deporter-in-chief ” from some immigrants’ rights activists.

The Biden administration has nonetheless taken a number of steps to try and reduce the increasing numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S. border, including setting up processing centers for migrants to apply for U.S. asylum in Guatemala and Colombia, and creating more pathways for others to come legally.

“Republicans have run on anti-immigrant sentiments, fearmongering and xenophobia for several cycles. It hasn’t worked for them before and it won’t work for them this cycle either,” said Pili Tobar, a former senior Biden White House official and Democratic strategist. “Immigration is a complex issue and there are no easy answers. This administration is working hard with the limited resources it has, to put in place balanced solutions.”

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas has moved a floating barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border closer to American soil as the Biden administration and Mexico protest the wrecking ball-sized buoys that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott authorized in the name of preventing migrants from entering the country.

The repositioning comes ahead of a hearing Tuesday that could decide whether the buoys remain. Texas began installing the bright-orange buoys on the Rio Grande in July and the state was quickly sued by the Justice Department, which argues the barrier could impact relations with Mexico and pose humanitarian and environmental risks.

During a trip Monday to the border city of Eagle Pass, where the buoys are located, Abbott said the barrier was moved “out of an abundance of caution” following what he described as allegations that they had drifted to Mexico’s side of the river.

“I don’t know whether they were true or not,” Abbott said.

It is not clear when U.S. District Judge David Ezra of Austin might rule on the barrier.

In the meantime, Abbott’s sprawling border mission known as Operation Lone Star continues to face numerous legal challenges, including a new one filed Monday by four migrant men who were arrested by Texas troopers after crossing the border.

The four men include a father and son and are among thousands of migrants who since 2021 have been arrested on state trespassing charges in Texas. Most have either had their cases dismissed or entered guilty pleas in exchange for time served. But the four men continued to remain in a Texas jail for two to six weeks after they should have been released, according to the lawsuit filed by the Texas ACLU and the Texas Fair Defense Project.

Instead of a Texas sheriff’s office allowing the jails to release the men, the lawsuit alleges, they were transported to federal immigration facilities where they were then sent to Mexico.

“I think a key point of all that, which is hard to grasp, is also that because they’re building the system as they go, the problems flare up in different ways,” said David Donatti, an attorney for the Texas ACLU.

Officials in both Kinney and Val Verde counties, which have partnered with Abbott’s operation, are named in the lawsuit. A representative for Kinney County said Monday he did not believe anyone had yet reviewed the suit. A representative for Kinney County did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The complaint also alleges that there were at least 80 others who were detained longer than allowed under state law from late September 2021 to January 2022.

Abbott was joined at the border on Monday by the Republican governors of Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska and South Dakota, all of whom have sent their own armed law enforcement and National Guard members to the border.

___ Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas.

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CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday will begin denying asylum to migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border without first applying online or seeking protection in a country they passed through. It marks a fundamental shift in immigration policy as the U.S. readies for the end of a key pandemic restriction.

Asylum seekers have been showing up at the border in huge numbers in anticipation of this week’s end of the use of a restriction known as Title 42. That rule has allowed the government to quickly expel migrants to Mexico. U.S. officials warned of difficult days ahead as the program tied to the COVID-19 pandemic expires this week.

The rule announced Wednesday is part of new measures meant to crack down on illegal border crossings while creating new legal pathways. Families who cross the border will face curfews and monitoring; the head of household will wear an ankle bracelet as their cases are heard within 30 days.

But there’s also a plan to open 100 regional migration hubs across the Western Hemisphere and granting humanitarian parole to 30,000 people a month to enter the country from four countries. U.S. officials have detailed steps they’ve taken, including increasing deportation flights, as they prepare for what many are expecting to be a substantial increase in migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Our plan will deliver results, but it will take time for those results to be fully realized,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned.

Many migrants, spurred by concerns that it may soon become harder to stay in the U.S., were trying to cross before Title 42 expires and the new rule takes effect at the end of the day Thursday.

Under Title 42, border officials have quickly returned people — and they did so 2.8 million times since March 2020. But after the restrictions expire Thursday, migrants caught crossing illegally will not be allowed to return for five years. They can face criminal prosecution if they do.

At the Rio Grande in Matamoros on Wednesday, migrants arrived steadily. Many stripped down before descending the steep riverbank grasping plastic bags filled with clothes. They slowly waded into the river as more migrants arrived, some crossing themselves before following the line across the flowing border. One family swaddled a tiny baby inside an open suitcase. A man held it atop his head while another waded beside him as a precaution. Other children rode on shoulders. On the U.S. side they scrambled up the bank, pausing to put on dry clothing, before carefully picking their way through the rows of concertina wire.

In Ciudad Juarez, migrants arrived this week in small groups by train or bus, leaving daily to surrender to the U.S. authorities.

Fran Tovar, a 30-year-old electrician from Venezuela who left two children behind to try to reach the U.S., was expelled from the U.S. on his first attempt. He was trying again 24 hours later, with the goal of crossing before Title 42’s use expires.

“There is fear and anguish,” Tovar said Wednesday, adding that he has spent three months in Juarez trying to get an appointment through an app the U.S. has encouraged migrants to use to present themselves at a border entry point and seek admission.

Roughly 10,000 people were apprehended by Border Patrol on Tuesday, among the largest apprehensions in a single day, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. More than 27,000 people were in custody. Custody numbers vary as migrants are released or deported, but in March 8,600 people were in Border Patrol custody.

Miguel Meza, the head of migrant programs for Catholic Relief Services, which has 26 migrant shelters across Mexico, estimated that about 55,000 migrants were in the border cities across from the U.S. on Wednesday. The shelter space is “saturated,” he said, and migrants were spilling into areas around them.

The measure announced Wednesday is a key part of the U.S. strategy to address border crossings that rose to all-time highs even with Title 42 in effect. While stopping short of a total ban, it imposes severe limitations on asylum for those crossing illegally who didn’t first seek a legal pathway. It includes room for exceptions and does not apply to children traveling alone. It was first announced in February.

A federal appeals court prevented similar but stricter measures pursued by then-President Donald Trump in 2019 from taking effect.

Human rights groups said they plan to sue quickly.

“This rule will subject people to grave harm,” said American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Katrina Eiland.

She said it would result in migrants stranded in northern Mexico. She said the rule was predicated on the idea migrants can get protection in another country or get an appointment online to seek asylum in the U.S. She said there are serious problems with both those options.

U.S. officials also said they planned to open regional hubs around the hemisphere, where migrants could apply to go to the U.S., Canada or Spain. Two hubs were previously announced in Guatemala and Colombia. It’s unclear where the other locations would be. The administration officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing border plans that were not yet public.

Most of the people going to the U.S.-Mexico border are fleeing persecution or poverty in their home countries. Migrants and groups who work with them noted the swirl of rumors and disinformation from smugglers that makes it hard for migrants to understand what to do.

In Matamoros, Carmen Josefina Characo Lopez said she arrived over a month ago and had been trying to use the U.S. government’s app to schedule an appointment to seek asylum.

“People who just arrive start hearing the stories of others who have been here longer and they start getting alarmed. ‘Oh, you’ve been here for four months. Well, I just got here and I’m going to cross.’ And that’s where the dilemma is,” she said.

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EL PASO, Texas (AP) — President Joe Biden walked a muddy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border and inspected a busy port of entry Sunday on his first trip to the region after two years in office, a visit shadowed by the fraught politics of immigration as Republicans blame him for record numbers of migrants crossing into the country.

At his first stop, the president observed as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. Next, he traveled to a dusty street with abandoned buildings and walked along a metal border fence that separated the U.S. city from Ciudad Juarez.

His last stop was the El Paso County Migrant Services Center — but there were no migrants in sight. As he learned about the services offered there, he asked an aid worker, “If I could wave the wand, what should I do?” The answer was not audible.

Biden’s nearly four-hour visit to El Paso was highly controlled. He encountered no migrants except when his motorcade drove alongside the border and about a dozen were visible on the Ciudad Juárez side. His visit did not include time at a Border Patrol station, where migrants who cross illegally are arrested and held before their release. He delivered no public remarks.

The visit seemed designed to showcase a smooth operation to process legal migrants, weed out smuggled contraband and humanely treat those who have entered illegally, creating a counter-narrative to Republicans’ claims of a crisis situation equivalent to an open border.

But his visit was likely do little to quell critics from both sides, including immigrant advocates who accuse him of establishing cruel policies not unlike those of his hard-line predecessor, Donald Trump.

In a sign of the deep tensions over immigration, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, handed Biden a letter as soon as he touched down in the state that said the “chaos” at the border was a “direct result” of the president’s failure to enforce federal laws. Biden later took the letter out of his jacket pocket during his tour, telling reporters, “I haven’t read it yet.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy dismissed Biden’s visit as a “photo op,” saying on Twitter that the Republican majority would hold the administration “accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history.”

El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego welcomed Biden’s visit, but said a current lull in arrivals prevented the president from seeing how large the group of newcomers has been.

“He didn’t get to see the real difficulties,” said Samaniego, who was in the local delegation that greeted Biden. “It was good that he was here. It’s a first step. But we still need to do more and have more time with him.”

Elsewhere in El Paso where Biden did not visit, hundreds of migrants were gathered Sunday outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where they have been sleeping outdoors and receiving three meals a day from faith groups and other humanitarian organizations.

The migrants included several pregnant women, including Karla Sainz, 26, eight months along. She was traveling in a small group that included her 2-year-old son, Joshua. Sainz left her three other children back home in Venezuela with her mother.

“I would ask President Biden to help me with a permission or something so we can work and continue,” she said.

Juan Tovar, 32, one of several people in her group, suggested he also had political reasons for leaving his home country.

“Socialism is the worst,” he said. “In Venezuela, they kill us, they torture us, we can’t talk bad about the government. We are worse off than in Cuba.”

Noengris Garcia, also eight months pregnant, was traveling with her husband, teen son and the small family dog from the tiny state of Portuguesa, Venezuela, where she operated a food stall.

“We don’t want to be given money or a house,” said Garcia, 39. “We just want to work.”

Asked what he’s learned by seeing the border firsthand and speaking with the officers who work along it, Biden said: “They need a lot of resources. We’re going to get it for them.”

El Paso is currently the biggest corridor for illegal crossings, in large part due to Nicaraguans fleeing repression, crime and poverty in their country. They are among migrants from four countries who are now subject to quick expulsion under new rules enacted by the Biden administration in the past week that drew strong criticism from immigration advocates.

Biden’s recent policy announcements on border security and his visit to the border were aimed in part at blunting the impact of upcoming investigations into immigration promised by House Republicans. But any enduring solution will require action by the sharply divided Congress, where multiple efforts to enact sweeping changes have failed in recent years.

From Texas, Biden traveled south to Mexico City, where he and the leaders of Mexico and Canada will gather on Monday and Tuesday for a North American leaders summit. Immigration is among the items on the agenda. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met Biden at the airport Sunday night and joined him in the presidential limousine for the ride to Biden’s hotel.

The numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Biden’s first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take measures that would resemble those of Trump’s administration.

The policy changes announced this past week are Biden’s biggest move yet to contain illegal border crossings and will turn away tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the border. At the same time, 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela will get the chance to come to the U.S. legally as long as they travel by plane, get a sponsor and pass background checks.

The U.S. will also turn away migrants who do not seek asylum first in a country they traveled through en route to the U.S. Migrants are being asked to complete a form on a phone app so that they they can go to a port of entry at a pre-scheduled date and time.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One that the administration is trying to “incentivize a safe and orderly way and cut out the smuggling organizations,” saying the policies are “not a ban at all” but an attempt to protect migrants from the trauma that smuggling can create.

The changes were welcomed by some, particularly leaders in cities where migrants have been massing. But Biden was excoriated by immigrant advocate groups, which accused him of taking measures modeled after those of the former president. Administration officials disputed that characterization.

For all of his international travel over his 50 years in public service, Biden has not spent much time at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The only visit that the White House could point to was Biden’s drive by the border while he was campaigning for president in 2008. He sent Vice President Kamala Harris to El Paso in 2021, but she was criticized for largely bypassing the action, because El Paso wasn’t the center of crossings that it is now.

Trump, who made hardening immigration a signature issue, traveled to the border several times.

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HEBRON, Ky. (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday he intends to visit the U.S.-Mexico border — his first since taking office — in connection with his meeting next week in Mexico City with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

“That’s my intention, we’re working out the details now,” Biden told reporters during a trip to Kentucky.

Biden said upon his return to the White House that he hoped to see “what’s going on” at the border and also planned to make remarks about border security on Thursday.

There have been large increases in the number of migrants at the border even as a U.S. public health law remains in place that allows American authorities to turn away many people seeking asylum in the United States. Republican leaders have criticized the president for policies that they say are ineffective on border security and they have questioned why he has not made a trip there yet.

Immigration will be among the top talking points at the summit Monday and Tuesday when Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are hosted by Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Early in his presidency, Biden put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the White House effort to tackle the migration challenge at the border and work with Central American nations to address central causes of the problem. She visited El Paso, Texas, in June 2021 and was criticized for choosing a location too far from the epicenter of border crossings that straining federal resources.

For now, the Supreme Court has for now kept in place Trump-era restrictions, often known as Title 42 in reference to a 1944 public health law, after Biden acted to end them and Republicans sued in response. Title 42 was invoked to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but there always has been criticism that the restrictions were used as a pretext by then-President Donald Trump to seal off the border.

The Biden administration has yet to lay out any systemic changes to manage an expected surge of migrants should the restrictions end. In Congress, a bipartisan immigration bill was buried shortly before Republicans assumed control of the House.

Biden made his comment about the upcoming visit during a stop in Kentucky at a highway bridge that is receiving federal dollars under the bipartisan infrastructure law.

Trump visited the U.S. side of the border as president several times times, including one trip to McAllen, Texas, where he claimed Mexico would pay for the border wall.

American taxpayers ended up covering the costs. Mexican leaders had flatly rejected the idea when Trump pressed them early on. “NO,” Enrique Peña Nieto, then Mexico’s president, tweeted in May 2018. “Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever. Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).”

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Six years had passed since Glenda Valdez kissed her toddler goodbye and left for the United States — six years since she held Emely in her arms.

But here she was, at Texas’ Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, tearfully embracing the little girl she left behind. And it happened only because she had glimpsed a televised photo of Emely, part of an Associated Press story on young people crossing the Mexican border alone.

“I love you so much,” she whispered in Spanish in her 9-year-old daughter’s ear. “My God, thank you.”

It was a fairy tale ending — for the moment — to a complicated story, one that began in Honduras and with an unhappy relationship, according to Valdez, 26.

Emely’s father, she said, was absent and did not provide for them. When Valdez emigrated in pursuit of a better life, the girl was left in the custody of Valdez’s mother. But Emely’s father took her back.

Valdez said she only had sporadic contact with her daughter — the father preferred that they not speak regularly. Every so often, Valdez would get a video call; eventually, Emely told her that she had a new stepmother who was not kind to her.

Emely told her that her father — seeing that she was unhappy with her life in that household — had decided to send her away, without telling her where. He placed her in the care of an adult who over several weeks helped her journey to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Around midnight as the day turned to May 13, Border Patrol agents encountered Emely in La Joya, on the Texas side of the Rio Grande Valley. She had been walking in the brush for six hours with a group of strangers and had lost a shoe in the mud. She was sobbing uncontrollably.

“I was thirsty and we didn’t have anything to drink and I didn’t like it and I didn’t know where I was going,” Emely said in Spanish on Sunday.

When the agents found her, she said she had lost her mother’s number, and did not know where her mother lived. Desperate, she gave reporters details she thought might identify her mom: “Her hair is curly, but sometimes she straightens it. And she has a lip ring.”

Her mother was expecting her, she said. But Valdez said Sunday she had no idea her child had been sent to cross the border.

Valdez was at her home in Austin, watching a Univision newscast one afternoon in May, when she saw the picture of Emely in a red hoodie. She knew at once that it was her daughter. Desperate, she immediately began making calls to U.S. authorities, the network and refugee agencies.

“I was like in shock, honestly, because imagine you are watching the TV and you suddenly see your daughter,” Valdez said. “And then even more to see her crying and everything she was saying broke my heart, honestly, everything she said there, that she was upset and crying and all that, and to see her image, barefoot and all was very difficult for me.”

Emely said she was taken to a group home. But Valdez didn’t know that, and for weeks she said she got only vague answers to her pleas for information. Be patient, she was told.

“I was just traumatized, like I spent many days crying, watching her video, looking through her photos and crying and crying and crying,” Valdez said.

Last Wednesday, she got a call: Emely was in a government shelter. They would be reunited soon. And then, on Saturday, she was told to meet her daughter at the airport the next day. At the appointed time, she raced to the bottom of the stairs at the crowded arrivals terminal to hug her daughter.

Emely is part of a large increase in children traveling alone who are entering the United States from Mexico — nearly 19,000 in March (the highest number on record) and nearly 17,200 in April (the second highest). Almost one of every three unaccompanied children appearing at the border is from Honduras, second only to Guatemala.

Guided by federal law and a decades-old court settlement, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department seeks to place unaccompanied children in the “least restrictive setting” possible, which, in the vast majority of cases is a parent or close relative already living in the United States. It took an average of 35 days to place children in a home at the end of May; Emely was reunited with her mother 10 days less than that.

Children are typically released with instructions to appear in immigration court, where a judge rules on their asylum claims. Decisions can take years — the court system has a backlog of 1.3 million cases.

While Emely awaits her court date, the girl has moved in with Valdez, her husband and their two daughters, who are excited to get to know this new sister they had only met virtually.

And to Valdez’s immense satisfaction, she is reconnecting with the little girl she said goodbye to six years ago.

“Well, the plan is everything that God wants and to be with her here,” Valdez said.

“To never be separated again. To ask God that we may never be separated again. To give her all of the love that I haven’t been able to give her. Everything that she is missing. To give her everything I can and to take her to school. That she has a better future, to remedy a little of what has happened.”

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