As debate over U.S. immigration policy heats up during the 2024 presidential campaign, separating fact from fiction on the U.S.-Mexico border becomes increasingly difficult.
In May 2023, shortly after the end of a public health restriction that allowed U.S. officials to immediately expel asylum-seekers, a team of academic and humanitarian aide colleagues and I went to the Mexican city of Matamoros, just across the Rio Grande from the banks of Brownsville, Texas.
At the time, we didn’t encounter the “invasion at the border” that conservative lawmakers such as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott predicted would happen once the COVID-19 restrictions – officially known as Title 42 – expired.
