Hundreds of migrants, mostly from Venezuela, surged the southern border at El Paso because of a mistaken idea that they would be allowed to stay in America if they crossed the border. Many wrongly believed they would be sent to New York City and receive free bus tickets to Canada. The rumors likely came from social media.

Border Patrol agents in El Paso said they encountered a surge of migrants between 8:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. Wednesday around one of the main border gates. Photos and video shows hundreds of illegal migrants lined up at the border fence. This is an unusual scene now that the Biden administration expanded the number of countries whose citizens are expelled under Title 42.

When the migrants went to turn themselves in, the agents told them that no policies had changed and that under Title 42 the United States is still expelling illegal migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti back to Mexico. Border Patrol issued a brief statement.

In a statement issued Thursday, Border Patrol said: “The El Paso Sector would like to inform migrants that nothing has changed. The US Border Patrol in the El Paso Sector continues to expel migrants under CDC’s Title 42 authority.”

After standing around for several hours, some of the migrants began to realize their information was wrong. They turned back to Mexico to avoid starting over in the process. If apprehended illegally, they lose the chance to stay in America and apply for asylum under the new program.

“We were certain it was true and that we would be given priority to go to Canada. But immigration (officers) told us that if we surrendered to them, they would send us back,” Mata said Thursday in a park within walking distance of the river in Juarez, Mexico. “I turned back because I don’t want to start over after all I suffered in coming here.”

Border officials think it is probably transnational criminal organizations luring the migrants to the border.

The U.S. Border Patrol reported the mass surrender of 500 people at the border wall in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday night. Perhaps 200 more trickled across on Thursday morning with specific instructions to approach border agents at access Gate 36 and Gate 40. Most of the migrants were single adult males and females, but there were several families as well.

“At around 8 p.m., agents assigned to the Ysleta station started receiving a constant flow of migrants. In a couple of hours, it was a flow of 500 migrants,” said Orlando Marrero-Rubio, a spokesman for the Border Patrol. “They were instructed that the federal government changed its policies on immigration and that’s completely false. […] Somebody on the Mexican side is informing them that we are going to put them on buses to Canada. That’s false.”

Federal officials suspect the rumor of free bus trips to Canada is being spread by the same transnational criminal organizations that lured the migrants to the border in the first place.

The Biden border crisis is a humanitarian crisis and it is also a national security crisis that enables drug cartels and human traffickers to take over control of parts of the southern border. The new program in effect is an app that migrants use to set up appointments with immigration officers at a port of entry. If migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua don’t use the app and have a U.S. sponsor, they lose their eligibility for asylum.

The Biden administration has set up a remote asylum application program for Venezuelans, Haitians, Cubans, and Nicaraguans with U.S. sponsors. However, if they come across the border without being summoned to an appointment at a port of entry, they will likely lose eligibility for asylum. The Biden administration has committed to accepting 30,000 migrants from these countries every month. It’s crazy but this is Biden’s America.

Some of the migrants say that they tried to use the app but it either didn’t work on their phone or when they showed up for their interview appointment at a port of entry, they weren’t on the list.

Others say they will keep trying.

Back at the park in Juarez, a young Venezuelan named Ender said he doesn’t know who started the rumors that prompted hundreds to approach the border wall. But he said he will not give up on the American dream.

“What we lived last night was an adventure,” he said, laughing. “It was disappointing. […] When I came back, I had lost my place at the shelter.”

The Biden administration is trying to end Title 42, as the pandemic is over. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case of Title 42 on March 1.