We’re a few minutes away from the daily White House press briefing, where homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will appear ahead of the midnight expiration of Title 42, the rule put in place under Donald Trump that has allowed US authorities to turn away most asylum seekers over the past three years.

Immigration authorities and some communities at the border are bracing for a potential surge of new migrants once the measure expires, and Mayorkas is likely to use his appearance to warn people against trying to cross into the US illegally, and outline steps Washington will take to stem the flow. He may also be asked about the possibility Republicans will follow through on their threats to impeach him over the situation at the border.

The briefing starts at 1 pm eastern time. After Mayorkas speaks, expect press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to take more questions from the White House press corps.

Punchbowl News reports that top Democratic and Republican negotiators will hold talks at the Capitol this afternoon to find an agreement on increasing the debt ceiling:

DEBT LIMIT: Negotiators from the House, Senate and White House will meet today at 12:30 p.m. in the Capitol.

Earlier this week, the top lawmakers in Congress met with Joe Biden at the White House ahead of the 1 June after which the US government could default on its obligations for the first time in history. There was no indication that progress was made at the meeting, where Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy stuck to his demand that Democrats support spending cuts and the enactment of some conservative priorities in exchange for his party’s vote to increase the limit.

Biden, meanwhile, has refused to negotiate over an increase, saying the GOP should support raising the government’s legal borrowing limit to pay for spending already approved under previous administrations.

This afternoon’s debt limit talks will likely be held behind closed doors, but we’ll be keeping a lookout in case any details trickle out.

CNN has taken a lot of heat for how last night’s town hall with Donald Trump went, with some Democrats and commentators questioning whether the network should have held the event at all.

Brian Stelter, a longtime media watcher who until recently hosted a show for the network, reported on this morning’s editorial call with CNN staffers and its CEO Chris Licht, who addressed some employees’ concerns about how the event was conducted:

Chris Licht begins CNN's 9am editorial call by praising @kaitlancollins for a "masterful performance last night." He says "I couldn't be more proud of her" and the whole team in NH. Then he says he's aware of the backlash... More to come

"You do not have to like the former president's answers, but you can't say that we didn't get them," Licht tells staffers, many of whom are angry about the town hall. "Kaitlan pressed him again and again and made news. Made a LOT of news." And "that is our job."

The town hall’s host Kaitlan Collins did indeed try to get Trump to specify his position on certain issues, with only some success. The former president refused to answer whether he would sign a national abortion ban, and said he would accept the 2024 election only with caveats. That’s not necessarily Collins’s fault – you can’t force someone to say something they don’t want to – but it was one of the more criticized aspects of the town hall.

Another controversial feature of the event was the behavior of the audience, which was composed of Republican voters, some of whom supported Trump, and others who were undecided. They clapped and cheered throughout the town hall, including as Trump told lies and hurled insults at his opponents. Here’s what Licht had to say about that dynamic:

"While we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, that was also an important part of the story," Licht adds, because those folks represent "a large swath of America," and the media screwed up by missing that part of the story in 2015/16.

Donald Trump’s performance at last night’s town hall was panned by some of his fellow Republicans.

Politico reports that John Thune, who is the second-in-command among Senate Republicans, implied Democratic candidates were the winners of the night:

Thune, number two Senate Republican, on Trump's town hall: "Looked like a lot of Democrat campaign ads being written last night."

CNN, meanwhile, found other Republicans senators who were uneasy about some of Trump’s comments, particularly his ambivalence towards supporting Ukraine and continued downplaying of the January 6 insurrection:

GOP Sen. Todd Young told me he worries about Trump’s judgment after his comments last night not calling Putin a “war criminal” and not taking sides on Ukraine v. Russia. “That's why I don't intend to support him for the Republican nomination.” pic.twitter.com/amDvfyRa6c

For those who missed it, the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt watched CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump last night, which, he reports, was about what you would expect:

It began and ended in a way that absolutely everyone could have predicted.

Appearing at a CNN town hall, Donald Trump immediately launched into a series of debunked, nonsense claims about election fraud, speaking nearly nonstop for more than five minutes.

Trump steamrolled over attempted interruptions from Kaitlan Collins, the CNN interviewer, as the town hall immediately turned into what many had feared: an opportunity for Trump to lie about dozens of topics, almost completely unfettered, across 60 minutes of prime-time television.

From 8pm to just after 9pm, there was never a moment when CNN or Collins had any semblance of control. Trump lied about election fraud and about the January 6 insurrection. He obfuscated on trade tariffs and the aims of abortion advocates, and claimed, wrongly, that he had “finished” the wall.

Whatever happens when Title 42 ends, the GOP is looking to make the most of it.

Today, the party will use its control of the House of Representatives to hold a vote on the Secure the Border Act, which would restart construction of the border wall Donald Trump tried to build, pay for more border patrol agents and reform the asylum system. Democrats, who have dubbed the legislation the “Child Deportation Act” are telling their lawmakers to vote against it. While it appears likely to pass the House, there’s little reason to believe it will make it through the Senate, which Democrats control.

Blaming Joe Biden for undocumented migration has become a cornerstone of the Republican platform since he took office, and polls indicate it’s not a bad strategy. On Wednesday, a Reuters/Ipsos survey showed a mere 26% of respondents approving of how the president has handled immigration.

On the senate floor today, the chamber’s top Republican Mitch McConnell again took the administration to task over the issue:

Now, as the Democrats finally give up the COVID state of emergency, Title 42 is finally going away. That wouldn’t pose a crisis for an Administration that was willing to get tough on its own and enforce existing immigration law. But Democrats don’t seem willing to do that. Just the opposite. President Biden’s team have designed a bizarre Rube Goldberg system that amounts to a special concierge service to help even more illegal immigrants come here even more easily.”

Here’s the latest from Reuters on how Washington is preparing for the end of Title 42, and the new rules it has put in place to discourage migrants from crossing the border illegally after it ends:

The US will lift Covid-19 border restrictions known as Title 42 on Thursday night, a major shift that has drawn tens of thousands of migrants to the US-Mexico border, straining local communities and intensifying political divisions.

The number of migrants caught crossing illegally has climbed in recent weeks, with daily apprehensions surpassing 10,000 on Monday and Tuesday. US border cities have struggled to shelter migrants and provide transportation to onward destinations.

The Biden administration is surging personnel and funds to the border while implementing a new regulation that will deny asylum to most migrants who cross illegally. The new measure will take effect when Title 42 ends along with the broad Covid public health emergency.

Last year, the Guardian’s Nina Lakhani took a close look at what exactly Title 42 meant for migrants who made it to the US southern border. With the policy ending in hours, it’s a story worth taking a look back at:

As hundreds of migrants line up along an Arizona border barrier at about 4am, agents try to separate them by nationality.

“Anyone from Russia or Bangladesh? I need somebody else from Russia here,” an agent shouts. Then, quietly, almost to himself, he says: “These are Romanian.”

It’s a routine task for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in this flat expanse of desert where the wall ends. People from at least 115 countries have been stopped here during the past year, with entire families from Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, India and Cameroon among those arriving in Yuma, south-west Arizona after wading through the perilous knee-deep Colorado River.

Donald Trump won the White House in 2016 with pledges to crack down on undocumented migrants and refugees. He had mixed success in that regard until March 2020, when the US government took unprecedented measures to stop the spread of Covid-19, including by implementing Title 42. Drawing from a federal law Congress passed in 1944, the policy allowed the United States to quickly expel migrants who turn up at its border seeking asylum, and has resulted in millions of expulsions over the past three years.

The policy ends at midnight tonight, and officials at the border worry a big influx of migrants could follow – which would be a liability to Joe Biden, who has been criticized both by the Republican opposition and migrant rights groups for his approach to immigration. In response, the homeland security department has passed new regulations that will penalize migrants who cross illegally.

Last week, the Guardian’s Alex Hinojosa reported on how El Paso, Texas, a major border crossing, is preparing for Title 42’s end:

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Be they Republican or Democrat, Washington’s political leaders have for years failed find agreement on reforming the nation’s immigration system, despite saying the rules are badly in need of an overhaul. That basic fact does not seem set to change, even though today at midnight Title 42, a public health measure implemented by Donald Trump when the Covid-19 pandemic began that allowed migrants to be quickly expelled at the US border and blocked most asylum applications, expires. Joe Biden’s White House is bracing for what could be a surge of migrants along the frontier with Mexico, while Republicans are today expected to push a measure overhauling the US immigration system through the House of Representatives. It’s not expected to go anywhere in the Senate, but you can expect to hear a lot about immigration for the rest of this week.

Here’s what we expect to happen today:

Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will appear at the White House’s briefing to reporters along with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at 1pm eastern time.

Besides Title 42, other provisions of the Covid-19 public health emergency end at midnight tonight, including vaccine requirements for federal employees and air travelers.

Expect to hear more about the CNN town hall with Donald Trump last night, including debate over whether the network should have held it all, and reaction to the former president’s lies and opinions.