Migrants sleep under a gazebo at a park in the Mexican border city of Reynosa, Saturday, March 27, 2021.
The decisions unfold amid what Border Patrol officials say is an extraordinarily high 30-day average of 5,000 daily encounters with migrants.
But under pandemic authority, Mexicans and citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras can be expelled to Mexico throughout the night and in smaller towns.
A U.S. travel advisory says heavily armed criminal groups patrol Reynosa in marked and unmarked vehicles.
AdFelicia Rangel, founder of the Sidewalk School, which gives educational opportunities to asylum-seeking children in Mexican border cities, sees the makings of a squalid migrant camp like in nearby Matamoros, which recently closed.