How social media is changing the way people migrate to the US

Migrants seeking to enter the US often camp out in border towns, sleeping outside and fighting hunger as they wait to be processed by border authorities. Photo: Isaac Guzman/dpa

At the migrant camp sprawled along the border wall between Tijuana, Mexico and San Diego, the United States, Diana Rodriguez kept hearing chatter about a confusing TikTok video.

It was a Thursday in May and the 30-year-old, who grew up in a mining village in Colombia, had already been camped out along the towering steel bollards for two days when whispers began to spread about the social media post. It claimed that Title 42, a policy the US government used during the Covid-19 pandemic to quickly expel many migrants without allowing them to apply for asylum, wouldn't expire until June.