With shelters at 'max' California border agents drop migrants at bus station

With shelters at 'max' California border agents drop migrants at bus station

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By Omar Younis
,Reuters•May 20, 2019

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FILE PHOTO: A person looks through the border wall towards the United States at Border Field State Park in San Diego, California, U.S. November 20, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo More

By Omar Younis

SAN BERNARDINO (Reuters) - A surge in migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border has pushed immigration detention facilities in California to capacity, forcing U.S. Border Patrol to release many at bus stations in the state for the first time, the agency said on Monday.

U.S. Border Patrol in the El Centro area of southern California said it began to drop migrants off at San Bernardino's Greyhound Station on Wednesday after it ran out of room to hold them.

"It was a decision that was made because they couldn’t take any more families and obviously we cannot keep them in custody for much longer because we are at capacity," said Miguel Garcia, acting assistant chief patrol agent.

Apprehensions of migrant families in California's El Centro sector rose 383 percent in the seven months through April from a year earlier as record numbers of mainly Central Americans crossed the border, Border Patrol data shows.

In San Bernardino, long a transit hub for east-west travel and freight, immigrants were dropped off at the bus terminal by Customs and Border Patrol Agents to wait for family, friends or volunteers to pick them up.

“We asked them where they were going to drop us off and they said at a bus station and there you might find some people who can help you, and that’s it," said Angel Gonzalez, 34, who left Guatemala on April 25 with his 11-year-old son and traveled through Mexico before crossing the U.S. border.

Gonzalez and his son were held by Customs and Border Patrol for six nights before they were released at the bus station on Sunday, seeking a ride to join relatives in Arkansas.

Immigration authorities for years have dropped off migrants at bus stations in the Southwest, after releasing them pending court hearings to decide whether they can stay in the country.

From there, they travel to their intended destination in the United States.

Record numbers of families from Central America are traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border and asking for asylum in the United States, fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries. From October 2018 through this April, nearly 293,000 unaccompanied children or people traveling in families were apprehended at the southern U.S. border - nearly four times the number during the same period the prior year.

The influx of families has swamped U.S. Border Patrol stations built to house single adults, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has run out of space to hold them.

Jacinto Chilel traveled through Mexico by bus with his 15-year-old daughter, Nineth, leaving his wife and five other children back in Guatemala in hopes he could send money home when he reaches Tennessee, where relatives live.

“There was a lot of risk on the route (from Guatemala), especially going through Mexico.

But once we got into the United States we felt better about our safety,” said Chilel, 46.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/shelters-...030802181.html

Hundreds of Detainees to Be Flown to San Diego for Processing

DROP THEM NO WHERE!

APPREHEND THEM AND IF YOU HAVE TO "RELEASE" THEM...BOOT THEM OUT THE FRONT DOOR AFTER PROCESSING!

WE ARE NOT THEIR UBER DRIVER!!!! DO NOT USE OUR TAX MONEY FOR BUS RIDES IN THE USA!

THEY MADE IT 2,000 MILES AND BARGED THEIR WAY IN...GIVE THEM NO RIDE ANYWHERE BUT BACK HOME!

Why The Feds Are Dropping Migrant Families At Bus Stations In The Inland Empire

BY LESLIE BERESTEIN ROJAS IN NEWS ON MAY 21, 2019 1:01 PM

https://laistassets.scprdev.org/i/83...317b-eight.jpgA U.S. Border Patrol agent takes a man into custody in this December 2018 file photo. (John Moore/Getty Images)

Migrant families who are being released pending asylum hearings are being dropped off at Inland Empire bus stations with no bus tickets, and sometimes no money.

Immigrant advocates said last week that they observed roughly 60 adults and children dropped off at the Greyhound bus station in San Bernardino, often with no resources. The Border Patrol confirmed that agents from its El Centro sector have been dropping off migrants at the station since last Wednesday.

So what's going on? First, some background.

This comes as more asylum-seeking families with children from Central America have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border. According to Border Patrol data, more than 58,000 families were apprehended at the southwest border in April, compared with 23,000 families in October.

A STRAINED SYSTEM

Officials say the increase in asylum seekers is straining their detention capacity at border entry points.

Asylum seekers are typically turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but because families with children can't legally be detained for more than 20 days, tens of thousands of families have been released with orders to appear in immigration court.

In an emailed statement Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials cited "capacity limitations" at Border Patrol stations and the limited capacity of ICE to accept family units as the reason why CBP began releasing "non-criminal, processed family units" on March 19. To date, CBP officials said, the agency has released 40,000 family unit members with orders to appear in immigration court; ICE has released approximately 180,000 family unit members since Dec. 21.

According to the statement, CBP began transporting migrant families from facilities at various points along the border starting May 10 "to leverage available capacity for processing and holding." Some families have been flown from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to San Diego; others were transferred from the Border Patrol's Yuma sector to El Centro, according to the agency.

Officials said they do seek other arrangements before resorting to the practice of taking families to bus stations. "Whenever possible" the releases are coordinated with non-governmental organizations that can assist the families, the agency said.

But not always:

"As NGOs have reached their capacities, CBP has released family units at transportation hubs during daylight hours when the weather does not endanger those released," according to the emailed statement.

A MOVE AWAY FROM THE BORDER

For months now, migrants have been dropped off at bus stations in border states. But local immigrant advocates said this is the first time they've observed it happening this close to the Los Angeles area.

That's how we got here. So far, it seems the migrant families are only being released inland: El Centro border agents said they are releasing people in their area of operations, which includes Indio, Riverside County, and San Bernardino County.

But local immigrant advocates said they are concerned about the state of the families they've encountered after they were dropped off.

Some of the adults and kids left in San Bernardino last week appeared sick, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. Some families were taken in by volunteers or local shelters, he said, while others continued on to other destinations by bus.

One group, the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, said via email that they'd assisted 32 families on Thursday and that "some of these families didn't even have access to a shower or clean clothes for over 10 days."

Border Patrol officials said in a statement Friday that people in their custody are fed and given medical screenings. The agency said family units are being released at bus stations so that they can reach their final destination as they wait to appear in immigration court.

Meanwhile, El Centro's neighboring San Diego Border Patrol sector is not directly releasing people at this time, the agency said, but is turning them over to ICE.

https://laist.com/2019/05/21/feds_dr...s_stations.php

Get them all out of here. We're sick of this. We've had it. We're fed up to our gills with this nonsense and madness. Don't let them in to begin with and throw them out immediately upon detection. All this coddling is disgusting and nauseating for Americans to have to listen to, watch, suffer and pay for. It is MADNESS.

Ask them 2 questions:

1. are you a US citizen, if yes, verify, if no, then
2. do you have documents to be in the US, if yes, verify, if no, then
3. Move them right back out, have the buses ready and release them at the border.

Then put a drone on them and track them. If they try to come back, use your tools any police officer would use on any American not following "instructions" in the same situation.