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Gonzales is one of about 300 people, mostly migrants, gathered in downtown Nogales, Sonora, to rally against the continuation of Title 42, a public-health policy in response to the pandemic that allows the U.S. government to send some migrants who enter the country undocumented directly back to Mexico without entering them into the immigration system.

Monday, the day of the rally, was the day Title 42 was scheduled to end. That changed Friday when a federal judge in Louisiana ruled that the Biden administration acted illegally when it announced in April that it planned to end Title 42.

Gonzales’ folder contains what she hopes will prove she has a legal right to claim asylum in the U.S., a process that has been largely closed to many migrants because of Title 42.

Showing anyone who will listen, Gonzales carries court records and photos of her husband with missing teeth and stitches. She says he had been beaten by a man who a judge ruled owed him money. When her husband died under somewhat mysterious circumstances, she was sure he was killed by the same man.

Gonzales then began receiving threats.

“I wanted to save my life, and my children’s lives,� she said.

She left Guatemala a month ago, traveling with her three children, 10, 8 and 2-year-old Carlitos. They made their way through Mexico with another Guatemalan woman and her 11-year-old son, who are also fleeing death threats.

They arrived in Nogales a week ago and attempted to cross the border. After walking three hours through the desert and crossing through a gap in the border wall, Border Patrol picked them up and dropped them off back in Nogales, Sonora, Gonzales says.

The women and children are sleeping in a shelter in Nogales, but there is a limit on how many days they can stay. They don’t know where they’ll go next. Gonzales has a sister in Florida who she eventually hopes to reach.

Gonzales said she hopes her pile of documents will help make an asylum claim.

'We hoped for an opportunity'

Many of the migrants at the rally are from Guerrero, a state in southern Mexico. And many have similar stories, saying that every person in whole towns are made to either make regular payments to cartels or have to leave under threat of death. Children are kidnapped and forced to join the cartels, and women are kidnapped and raped. Most say they have family members who have been murdered.

Mother and daughter Adilene and Maria fled Guerrero under threat of death. Like many of the migrants here, they’ve been waiting in Nogales for 10 months, hoping that when Title 42 ends, they’ll be allowed to present themselves at a port of entry and ask for asylum.

They live in fear that the criminal organizations they ran from will find them anywhere in the country, which is why they asked that their last names not be used in this news story.

“We’re desperate,� Adilene said. “We hoped for an opportunity. We just want a little peace�

Like many of the migrants waiting in Nogales, Adilene and Maria are vaccinated against COVID and don’t understand why they are being barred from making an asylum claim because of the pandemic.

While migrant advocates say that Title 42 circumvents domestic and international law that affords persecuted people the right to make an asylum claim, proponents of keeping the public-health order say border communities would not be able to handle the influx in migrants that could happen if the order were ended.

Both March and April saw record-breaking numbers of apprehensions along the southern border, at more than 222,000 in March and 234,000 in April. Nearly half of these migrants were quickly expelled from the U.S. under Title 42.

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ border apprehensions in March were also high at nearly 58,500 but fell slightly to 53,500 in April.

No 'horizon to look forward to'

Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema were among a group of senators who introduced a bill that could have delayed the lifting of Title 42, saying there needs to be a more comprehensive plan to handle a possible influx of migrants before the order is lifted.

“For too long, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ns have paid the price for Washington’s failure to plan ahead and secure the border,â€� Kelly said in a statement the day the judge ruled to keep the order in place. “Today’s decision does not change the fact that there is a crisis at the border and there must be a detailed plan that can be implemented before Title 42 is lifted. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ns deserve a secure, orderly, and humane border response and I will continue to hold the administration accountable to that.â€�

The Department of Homeland Security released a 20-page plan in April for how they would handle a possible influx of migrants upon the lifting of Title 42. The department typically relies on Title 8 for processing migrants who enter the country undocumented. The immigration law allows the government to process people for removal or put them through court proceedings that could establish a legal basis for them to remain in the country, such as a political asylum claim, which tend to have low approval rates.

Title 42 has been extended numerous times, but this time is different, says Joanna Williams, executive director for the Kino Border Initiative, a migrant-aide organization in Nogales, Sonora, which also helped organize the rally on Monday.

Williams says she fears that more migrants will attempt the treacherous desert crossing. Hundreds of migrants die each year doing so, especially during the summer months.

“Every other time it was extended, it was for a certain amount of time,� she said. “There was always this sense of — 30 days from now, 60 days from now, maybe we'll be able to persuade the CDC that this law never made sense in the first place. But now we're at a point where this is indefinite. We're caught up in the court system. And the families don't have a horizon to look forward to.�