Why migrant caravan on U.S.-Mexico border merits asylum consideration

President Donald Trump’s outraged reaction to some 200 Central American residents who have arrived in Tijuana to seek U.S. asylum after a five-week “caravan” across Mexico clearly plays to his base, whose opposition to both illegal and legal immigration may be their most defining characteristic.

But his assertion that the caravan reflects lawlessness and anarchy at the border simply isn’t true.

What’s now unfolding is absolutely within the parameters of U.S. law — and U.S. history.

In 1980, the United States formally enacted a refuge law built on principles the nation already followed that were established by a 1951 United Nations convention on refugees.

That convention was prompted by the wrenching experience of World War II and its aftermath, in which millions of refugees fled nations taken over by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Under the 1980 law, the federal government is required to consider providing asylum to an individual who is “unable or unwilling to return to (his or her home country), and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion.”

Since World War II, U.S. officials have given asylum to millions of people from war-torn or repressive nations. While the numbers vary from year to year, the number of refugees admitted is a small fraction of the overall number of people legally migrating to the U.S. each year — normally about 1 million people.

Homeland Security reports an average of 72,000 refugees were admitted annually from 2014 to 2016.

But the process is hardly automatic. Instead, as detailed in a report in The San Diego Union-Tribune, it amounts to a daunting challenge. Applicants are generally required to stay in U.S. detention facilities.

They are interviewed by several federal agencies, and they’re expected to provide photos, official reports or other evidence documenting the threats they face if they return home.

Finally, they must make their case to special judges.

Those without compelling cases are routinely rejected. This lengthy process doesn’t reflect anarchy.

This reflects a nation functioning under the rule of law.

What’s not clear yet is if the Trump administration has broken with this long and honorable record.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s weekend statement that it had “reached capacity” at the San Ysidro Port of Entry for processing persons “without appropriate entry documentation” can be seen as in keeping with its past reactions to an influx of asylum-seekers, such as what happened in 2016, when thousands of Haitians sought entry.

But given Trump’s comments, few will be surprised if the agencies that report to the White House have made something of a pre-determination that those on the caravan don’t qualify for asylum status — without even hearing their stories.

This callousness about refugees no doubt sits well with the millions of Trump supporters who believe his canard about America having open borders.

It’s also likely to please the many people who look at European nations’ struggle to absorb more than 2 million refugees in the wake of the Syrian civil war and who fear that’s what might happen here.

But those who say the president merely wants to follow the law on asylum seekers — unlike the presidents who came before him — are lying to themselves.

To the contrary, residents of violent, gang-dominated areas of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who believe they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” because they have crossed the wrong people are legally entitled to asylum consideration.

Given that so many critics of U.S. immigration policies like to say “what part of ‘illegal’ don’t you understand?” this irony is painful — and ugly.