Migrant caravan at U.S. border set to seek asylum

TIJUANA, MEXICO — About 170 migrants in a caravan of Central American asylum-seekers have arrived in Tijuana, joining nearly 200 others on their final stop before entering the United States.

Three tourist buses were guarded by a Mexican police escort on a curvy, mountainous road from the Mexican border city of Mexicali.

Lawyers planned free workshops on the U.S. immigration system Friday and Saturday in Tijuana. Many planned to seek asylum starting Sunday at San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing, the nation’s busiest.

Migrant shelters in Tijuana’s Zona Norte neighborhood, home to many of the city’s seedy bars and bordellos, were full. That forced organizers to look elsewhere for temporary housing, said Leonard Olsen of Pueblos Sin Fronteras, a group leading the effort.

Migrants who stayed overnight at a shelter in Mexicali were tired from the long journey and nervous about the possibility of being detained in the U.S. but also knowledgeable about their rights to seek protection from persecution in their home countries, Olsen said. Many Central American asylum-seekers say they face death threats by criminal gangs in their homelands.

“This is a moment that will change their lives,” Olsen said in Mexicali, as he waited for the buses to arrive a few hours behind schedule.

Caravans have been a fairly common tactic for advocacy groups to bring attention to asylum-seekers, and the latest group pales in size compared to previous border surges, but it gained huge visibility after President Donald Trump unleashed strong criticism from the moment it began March 25 in the Mexican city of Tapachula, near the Guatemala border.

The caravan drew as many as 1,000 people as it crossed Mexico as Trump and top aides portrayed them as a significant threat and evidence of a dysfunctional border.

Trump cited the caravan as justification for the border wall he wants to build on Thursday, even though the asylum-seekers plan to turn themselves in to border inspectors and are legally entitled to seek protection. He said he ordered the Homeland Security Department to “stop the caravan” but that more needs to be done.

“We need a strong, impenetrable WALL that will end this problem once and for all,” he wrote to campaign supporters.

Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said late Wednesday that any person trying to cross into the U.S. who makes false claims to immigration authorities will be subject to criminal prosecution. She said prosecution was also possible for any people who might assist or coach immigrants to make false claims in bids to enter the U.S.

MEGHAN DHALIWAL / THE NEW YORK TIMES Orfa Marin, of Honduras, braids the hair of Rosemarie Gonzalez, 10, from El Salvador, in Tijuana, Mexico, on Wednesday.