U.S. immigration officials said Sunday that the San Diego border
crossing where hundreds of Central American immigrants intended to apply
for asylum was closed due to high capacity -- but many of the
asylum-seekrs were preparing to wait overnight.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said earlier Sunday
that the agency "reached capacity at the San Ysidro port of entry for
CBP officers to be able to bring additional persons traveling without
appropriate entry documentation into the port of entry for processing."
Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told Fox News in a
statement that immigrants "may need to wait in Mexico as CBP officers
work to process those already within our facilities."
Despite the announcement, about 50 people walked across
a bridge and approached the port facility, but were not immediately
accommodated by U.S. officials. They were being permitted to wait in
passageways until room became available, and appeared prepared to wait
overnight, according to Irineo Mujica, one of the organizers of Pueblos
Sin Fronteras, an organization assisting the asylum speakers.
Another 50 prepared to camp outside a gate on the
Mexican side of the border crossing with backpacks and blankets hoping
to get their turn on Monday.
Immigration officials had warned that the San Ysidro
border crossing may not be able hold many asylum-seekers if it faces too
many at once. The port of entry, according to the agency, can hold
about 300 people temporarily.
Roughly 200 people, including women and young children,
were expected to turn themselves over to border inspectors after
arriving in Tijuana last week, claiming they had a credible fear of
persecution at home. Demonstrators gathered along the border to hold a
rally in the hours before crossing over, with some people scaling the
fence.
ASYLUM-SEEKING IMMIGRANT 'CARAVAN' POISED TO TEST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
A demonstration on the border in Tijuana, Mexico, as a caravan of Central Americans prepares for their border crossing.
(AP )
"The only thing I would tell Mr. Trump is to have a
conscious and to look at all the people and the way they suffer. Because
the people, they are coming from those countries, they are not doing it
for pleasure," Osman Salvador Ulla Castro, who is from Honduras, told
Fox News. "They face danger and extortions and they are looking for a
better life."
The Border Patrol said Saturday that several groups of
families from the caravan earlier tried to enter the U.S. illegally by
scaling parts of the "dilapidated scrap metal border fence" near San
Ysidro.
People climb the border wall fence as a caravan of
migrants and supporters reached the United States-Mexico border near San
Diego, California, U.S., April 29, 2018.
(REUTERS/Mike Blake)
"In several of these incidents, children as young as 4
years old, and in one case a pregnant female, were detected entering the
United States illegally through a dark, treacherous canyon that is
notorious for human and drug smuggling," U.S. Customs and Border
Protection San Diego Chief Patrol Agent Rodney Scott said. "As a father
myself, I find it unconscionable that anyone would expose a child to
these dangerous conditions."
The Trump administration has been tracking the caravan
since it started March 25 near the Guatemala border, calling it a threat
to the U.S., in addition to promising a swift response.
The administration has also claimed the caravan
represented a deliberate attempt to overwhelm the U.S. legal system and
the courts.
CARAVAN'S ASYLUM-SEEKERS SNUB US WARNINGS AS THEY HEAD TOWARD BORDER
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said last
week that asylum claims would be resolved "efficiently and
expeditiously," but that the asylum-seekers should seek it in the first
safe country they reach, including Mexico.
Asylum-seekers typically are separated from their
children and held up to three days at the border before being turned
over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If they pass an asylum
officer's initial screening, they may be detained for several months
until their court hearing or released with ankle monitors.
Nearly 80 percent of asylum-seekers passed the initial
screening from October through December, according to the latest numbers
available, but few are likely to eventually win asylum.
Any asylum seekers making false claims to U.S.
authorities could be prosecuted, as could anyone who assists or coaches
immigrants on making false claims, according to Nielsen.
Members of a caravan from Central America walk next to
the border fence between Mexico and the U.S., before a gathering in a
park and prior to preparations for an asylum request in the U.S., in
Tijuana, Mexico April 29, 2018.
(REUTERS/Edgard Garrido)
Administration officials and their allies claim asylum fraud is growing and that many who seek it are coached on how to do so.
U.S. immigration lawyers who went to Tijuana have
denied coaching people in the caravan, but have said they have been
providing one-on-one counseling to assess the merits of their cases and
how asylum works in the U.S.
ASYLUM-SEEKING IMMIGRANT 'CARAVAN' POISED TO TEST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
"Like how to defend myself with immigration, how to
carry myself," a 16-year-old unaccompanied minor from Honduras told Fox
News on Saturday regarding the meetings he's had with lawyers.
Central American migrants sit on top of the border wall
on the beach in San Diego during a gathering of migrants living on both
sides of the border, Sunday, April 29, 2018.
(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Heather Crone, of U.S. advocacy group Show Up for
Racial Justice, said Sundays he's found 80 people in America who have
agreed to sponsor caravan members if they're released while their
petitions are pending.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has called the caravan
"a deliberate attempt to undermine our laws and overwhelm our system,"
pledging to send more immigration judges to the border to resolve cases
if needed.
