Thread: Get in Line, Long-Suffering Asylum Seekers Tell Caravan Arrivees

Get in Line, Long-Suffering Asylum Seekers Tell Caravan Arrivees

TIJUANA, Mexico—Fermín Campos arrived at the El Chaparral border crossing to the U.S. with 11 family members six weeks ago, well before a caravan of more than 5,000 Central Americans arrived in this city across the border from San Diego.

On a notebook ledger organized and maintained by asylum seekers here to take orderly turns entering the U.S. to make their claims, Mr.Campos, a Mexican citizen, wrote the names of all the members of his large family and began waiting for his number to be called.

The notebook—“el cuaderno” in Spanish—became a way of bringing order as thousands of migrants have come to the border to ask for asylum and the Trump administration has toughened its immigration stance, slowing down the asylum process. Now it is the center of rising tensions as the thousands of so-called caravan migrants have poured into Tijuana, overwhelming Mexican officials.

As days of waiting have stretched into weeks, Mr. Campos and others in his predicament have grown increasingly concerned that the massive influx could disrupt the self-administered priority system at the border. He is trying to cross into the U.S. and make a new life after fleeing his hometown in the lawless Mexican state of Guerrero, where he said he received many threats from extortionists.

“The caravan guys came here very aggressively...They wanted to impose their own rules,” said Mr. Campos, standing in a small plaza next to the U.S. port of entry. “They don’t want to go through this process. They just want to show up and cross.”

U.S. immigration authorities said they coordinate with Mexican officials daily in deciding how many people they will allow to cross to the U.S. side of the border to ask for asylum.

The U.S. entry port of San Ysidro, Calif., right across the border from El Chaparral, has space for 300 people and has been processing an average of about 100 asylum petitions each day. Customs and Border Protection officials say that after an initial review and interview with asylum petitioners, the goal is to move them within 72 hours from the facility’s basement holding cells to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A caravan of several thousand Central American migrants is heading towards the United States border, moving north through Mexico.

Before the migrant caravan arrived in Tijuana in mid-November, Mexican officials estimate, some 2,700 asylum seekers awaited entry, including Mexican nationals, Central Americans and between 30 to 40 Africans. After the caravan migrants arrived, they say, the waiting list grew to about 7,000 people.

U.S. immigration authorities have said it could take as long as five weeks to clear the list of migrants who arrived before the caravan.Only then, they say, can they start addressing the claims of the Central Americans who came in the large and highly visible groups that have moved north through Mexico over the last few weeks.

On Thursday, asylum seekers confronted a Peruvian man who had been helping oversee the waiting list, accusing him of adding three people to it before they had even entered Mexico.

Also on Thursday, several Central American women who arrived in the caravan began a hunger strike to demand entry to the U.S. Last week, some caravan members tried to storm the U.S. border but were pushed back by CBP officers who dispersed tear gas from the U.S. side.

Other asylum seekers have voiced concern that the tactics used by caravan migrants have threatened what had become an agreed-upon process of accessing the U.S. border. Abdul Savage, a 17-year-old from Sierra Leone, said the procedure has slowed since the migrant caravan showed up.

“The caravan people, they are making it really difficult for us, the Africans,” he said. “They are looking for a better life, but also we too are looking for a better life.”

Migration advocates say the U.S. admission process for asylum seekers is too restrictive.

“There are 5,000 people here who are waiting for their turn to ask for asylum,” said David Abud, a Los Angeles-based immigration activist at a press conference in Tijuana. “So how long are they going to have to wait here, so that they can exercise a human right, which is petitioning asylum?”

CBP officials say the number of asylum petitions they process daily varies based on case complexity, available resources, medical needs, translation requirements and holding or detention space, among other factors.

Wilfredo Garach Orellana, a 41-year-old Honduran, said he was among the first to arrive with the caravan and has been in Tijuana for several weeks waiting his turn on the list.

Mr. Orellana said life has become “ugly, real ugly” at the crowded, rain-flooded sports complex where the migrants have been encamped. On Thursday, Mexican officials began moving people to a new shelter—a disused concert hall—in a bid to improve sanitary and security conditions.

Hundreds of numbers have to be called before it’s his turn to apply, Mr. Orellana said, adding he planned to wait because “it’s a legal route.”

Mr. Campos said he and his family fled his hometown of El Papayo in Guerrero state, south of Mexico City, on Oct. 23 in the middle of the night. He showed a reporter some of the text messages threatening him and his family members. These text messages, he hopes, will serve as evidence for his asylum case.

As he waited on Thursday, Mr. Campos voiced his frustration at the caravan migrants. “We’ve been here waiting for a long time,” he said,“and they don’t want to wait.”

On Friday morning, Mr. Campos was the first to be called, and a grin broke out on his face as he and his large family, including his mother-in-law hobbling on a bad foot, lined up outside the U.S. port of entryon Friday.

Mr. Campos hopes to make a fresh start in San Jose, Calif., where he says he once lived, undocumented, with many of his American-born children before agreeing to a voluntary deportation in 2008.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/get-in-line-long-suffering-asylum-seekers-tell-caravan-arrivees/ar-BBQki5K?li=BBnbfcL

Tell these people that "a better life" and a "job" is not a case for asylum...neither are your bogus threatening text messages!

Overbreeding in poverty is no case for asylum either!

They need to be put on buses and sent back home.

We do not want their ELEVEN family members, or his mother-in-law with a hobbling foot!

Go get your "human rights" at home and go demand your rights on your President's doorstep!

It is expensive to live here, find housing, work and FEED your eleven family members! No welfare, no food stamps, no school, no childbirth, no medical care, no nothing!

KEEP THEM ALL OUT AND STOP THIS MOB INVASION OF OUR COUNTRY!