Driving the news: This week’s reports — that the administration plans to end the use of a COVID-19 immigration ban called Title 42 by May 23 — put a timeline on a scenario for which Homeland Security officials have spent months preparing.

Axios recently scooped details of officials’ internal deliberations about how to manage a hypothetical “mass migration event” in the coming weeks or months.

The end of Title 42 and the movements that could trigger is what they were talking about.

The big picture: Democrats already were worried about losing suburban voters and centrist Hispanic voters over inflation and culture wars. A new border surge may only exacerbate those concerns while inflaming national security considerations.