While the Biden administration says its focus is to counter misinformation, the policy changes announced just hours prior to the end of Title 42 are likely to sow further confusion at the southern border.

About two dozen makeshift tents were set ablaze and destroyed at a migrant camp across the border from Texas this week, witnesses said Friday, a sign of the extreme risk that comes with being stuck in Mexico as the Biden administration increasingly relies on that country to host people fleeing poverty and violence.

The Conversation asked Karen Musalo, an expert on refugee law at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, to explain what the Biden administration’s new asylum rule change entails, what its impact will be and why it is so controversial.