Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Monday 30 april 2018

Central Americans

will seek asylum at

southern U.S. border

By ELLIOT SPAGAT sions called the caravan “a
Associated Press deliberate attempt to un-
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — dermine our laws and over-
U.S. immigration lawyers are whelm our system,” pledg-
telling Central Americans in ing to send more immigra-
a caravan of asylum-seek- tion judges to the border to
ers that traveled through resolve cases if needed.
Mexico to the border with Homeland Security Sec-
San Diego that they face retary Kirstjen Nielsen said
possible separation from asylum claims will be re-
their children and deten- solved “efficiently and ex-
tion for many months. They peditiously” but said the
say they want to prepare asylum-seekers should seek
them for the worst possible it in the first safe country Central American migrants traveling with a caravan sit momentarily on top of the border wall
outcome. they reach, including Mex- during a gathering of migrants living on both sides of the border, on the beach where the border
“We are the bearers of hor- ico. wall ends in the ocean, with Tijuana, Mexico at left and San Diego at right, Sunday, April 29, 2018.
rible news,” Los Angeles Any asylum seekers making Associated Press
lawyer Nora Phillips said false claims to U.S. authori- which admits about 75,000 custody while their claims through December, the lat-
during a break from legal ties could be prosecuted people a day into the coun- wind through the courts in est numbers available, but
workshops for the migrants as could anyone who as- try, may be unable to take cases that can last for year. few are likely to eventually
at three Tijuana locations sists or coaches immigrants asylum-seekers if it faces The lawyers who went to win asylum.
where about 20 lawyers on making false claims, too many at once, forcing Tijuana denied coach- Mexicans fared worst
gave free information and Nielsen said. Administra- people to wait in Mexico ing any of the roughly 400 among the 10 countries
advice. “That’s what good tion officials and their allies until it has more room, ac- people in the caravan who that sent the largest num-
attorneys are for.” claim asylum fraud is grow- cording to Pete Flores, U.S. recently arrived in Tijuana, bers of U.S. asylum seekers
The Central Americans, ing and that many who Customs and Border Pro- camping out in shelters from 2012 to 2017, with a
many traveling as fami- seek it are coached on tection’s San Diego field near some of the city’s denial rate of 88 percent,
lies, on Sunday will test how to do so. office director. Flores said seedier bars and bordellos. according to asylum out-
the Trump administration’s Kenia Elizabeth Avila, 35, earlier this month that the Some migrants received come records tracked by
tough rhetoric criticizing appeared shaken after the port can hold about 300 one-on-one counseling to Syracuse University’s Trans-
the caravan when the mi- volunteer attorneys told her people temporarily. assess the merits of their actional Records Action
grants begin seeking asy- Friday that temperatures The Border Patrol said “sev- cases and groups of the Clearinghouse.
lum by turning themselves may be cold in temporary eral groups” of people in migrants with their children El Salvadorans were close
in to border inspectors at holding cells and that she the caravan have entered playing nearby were told behind with a 79 percent
San Diego’s San Ysidro bor- could be separated from the country illegally since how asylum works in the denial rate, followed by
der crossing, the nation’s her three children, ages 10, Friday by climbing a dilapi- U.S. Hondurans at 78 percent
busiest. 9 and 4. dated metal fence. It didn’t Asylum-seekers are typi- and Guatemalans at 75
President Donald Trump But she in said an interview say how many people. cally held up to three days percent.
and members of his Cabi- that returning to her na- Since Congress failed to at the border and turned “It’s really scary to tell these
net have been tracking the tive El Salvador would be agree on a broad immi- over to U.S. Immigration experiences to a stranger,”
caravan, calling it a threat worse. She fled for reasons gration package in Febru- and Customs Enforcement. Wiese said after counseling
to the U.S. since it started she declined to discuss. ary, administration officials If they pass an asylum offi- a visibly shaken Guatema-
March 25 in the Mexican “If they’re going to sepa- have made it a legisla- cer’s initial screening, they lan woman at an art gal-
city of Tapachula, near the rate us for a few days, tive priority to end what may be detained or re- lery in a building that used
Guatemala border. They that’s better than getting they call “legal loopholes” leased with ankle monitors. to house a drug smuggling
have promised a stern, swift myself killed in my country,” and “catch-and-release” Nearly 80 percent of asy- tunnel into San Diego. “The
response. she said. policies that allow asylum- lum-seekers passed the ini- next time she tells her story
Attorney General Jeff Ses- The San Ysidro crossing, seekers to be released from tial screening from October will be easier.”q