Asylum seekers wait for 2nd day at border
Annual caravan by Central Americans seeking refuge in the US
ABOUT 200 people in a caravan of Central American asylum seekers waited on the Mexican border with San Diego for a second day on Monday to turn themselves in to US border inspectors, who said the nation’s busiest crossing facility did not have enough space to accommodate them.
After a month-long journey across Mexico under the Trump administration’s watchful eye, the asylum seekers faced an unexpected twist on Sunday when US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing facility had “reached capacity”. The agency said it had no estimate when the location would accept new asylum application cases.
About 50 people, many women and children, camped overnight on blankets and backpacks in Tijuana outside the Mexican entrance to the crossing. The crowd grew, assembled behind metal gates that Mexican authorities erected to avoid impeding the flow of others going to the US for work, school and recreation.
Another 50 asylum seekers were allowed past a gate controlled by Mexican officials on Sunday to cross a long bridge but were stopped at the entrance to the US inspection facility.
They waited outside, technically on Mexican soil, without word of when US officials would let them try to claim asylum.
Irineo Mujica, a caravan organiser, said asylum seekers who crossed the bridge remained in a waiting area on Mexican soil on Monday. He alleged US authorities were refusing entry in an effort to dissuade people from trying. “When they say they reached capacity, it’s just nonsense from (US authorities) so they can abandon, not attend to, and evade their responsibilities in asylum cases,” said Mujica, of the advocacy group Pueblos Sin Fronteras.
Customs and Border Protection said on Sunday that it would resume asylum processing at the San Diego crossing when it had more space and resources.
The San Ysidro border inspection facility that divides San Diego from Tijuana can hold about 300 people, meaning the bottleneck may be short-lived.
The agency processed about 8 000 asylum cases from October until February at the crossing, or about 50 a day.
Thousands of Haitians seeking to turn themselves in at the San Diego crossing overwhelmed US inspectors at the San Diego crossing in 2016, leading to the creation of a ticketing system. At one point, Haitians had to wait in Tijuana for more than five weeks for their turn.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticised the caravan since it started in Mexico on March 25 near the Guatemala border and headed north to Tijuana.
Trump’s broadsides came as his administration vowed to end what officials call “legal loopholes” and “catch-and-release” policies that allow people requesting asylum to be released from custody into the US while their claims make their way through the courts, which can take years.
“Catch and release is ridiculous,” Trump said on Monday at a news conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari at the White House. “If they touch our property, if they touch our country, you catch them and you release them into our country. That’s not acceptable to anybody.”
Attorney-general Jeff Sessions has called the caravan “a deliberate attempt to undermine our laws and overwhelm our system”.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said asylum claims will be resolved “efficiently and expeditiously” and warned that anyone making false claims could be prosecuted and said asylum seekers should seek protection in the first safe country they reach, including Mexico.
Asylum seekers did not appear to be thrown off by the delay.
Elin Orellana, a 23-year-old pregnant woman from El Salvador, said she was fleeing the MS-13 street gang, a favourite target of Sessions and Trump because of their killings committed in the US. She said her older sister had been killed by the gang in El Salvador, so is trying to join other family in the Kansas City area.
“Fighting on is worth it,” she said as she camped outside the Mexican entry.