Asylum-seekers: Mexicans want money to let them pass

Asylum-seekers funneled to bridge crossings at the Texas border are being blocked from approaching the U.S. side, forced on waiting lists overseen by Mexican officials.

The asylum-seekers and immigrant advocates say that has put them at risk of extortion, discrimination and deportation. Many of them have told of Mexican officials demanding money to let them pass and of watching others, further down the list, cross ahead of them.

In Matamoros, a city across from Brownsville, Texas, the list is kept on a clipboard in a plastic case on the newer of two border bridges. Though Mexican officials maintain the list, U.S. officers decide how many asylum-seekers cross. An individual familiar with the Mexican immigration system who spoke on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons said U.S. officials choose who crosses based on nationality and other characteristics.

Last week, Mexican immigration officials notified four asylum-seekers camped at the foot of the bridge for more than a month that it was their turn to cross. They had been near the top of the waiting list for days but had watched others jump ahead of them.

Mexican officials escorted the four — a pregnant woman, her boyfriend, a mother and her 16-year-old son — to a U.S. customs officers’ station at the center of the covered bridge. “How many are you, and from what countries?” one of the U.S. officials asked in Spanish.

The migrants identified themselves, and the U.S. officials counted aloud: two Cubans, two Guatemalans. Mexican officials nodded. Then they allowed the four to enter the U.S.

U.S. law says immigrants can present themselves to request asylum at border crossings or inside the country after entering illegally. But as thousands of Central Americans approached the border this month, President Donald Trump announced that those crossing illegally would be denied asylum. This week, a federal judge in San Francisco blocked that ban.

But the judge’s ruling didn’t address the administration’s efforts to stop asylum-seekers at southern border bridges. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say they have run out of space to process them at border holding areas, most of which they said house fewer than a hundred people.

The agency has stationed officers at bridge midpoints to prevent asylum-seekers from entering the U.S. The migrants must add their names to waiting lists in Mexico, a process U.S. officials call “queue management.” A list was first used two years ago in Tijuana, prompting immigrant advocates to sue in California federal court, arguing that the process illegally blocked asylum-seekers. With the lawsuit pending, U.S. immigration officials expanded the system to busy crossings in Arizona and Texas.

As of last week, waiting lists were being used at all major crossings in Texas, said Rick Pauza, a Laredo-based spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Across the border from El Paso, Mexican officials in Ciudad Juarez cleared 300 migrants from border bridges last week, sent them to shelters and created a waiting list, said Shaw Drake, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. Asylum-seekers’ numbers on the list were written in marker on their arms.

“They’re creating the circumstances under which that’s necessary,” Drake said. About 20 of the asylumseekers were being admitted to the U.S. daily from Juarez, he said. “It’s illegal to be turning these people away and making them wait.”