Migrants 'knock at front door' for asylum after Trump crackdown
TIJUANA , Mexico (Reuters) - More Mexicans and Central Americans are lining up to make asylum requests at the US-Mexico border as word spreads of a US crackdown on families crossing illegally and the threat of brutal gangs lying in wait if they go it alone.
Officials at shelters in border cities as well as migrants from Mexico and Central America told Reuters there was a rising number of people waiting, often for weeks, to make asylum pleas to immigration authorities at official border crossings.
Many of the dozens of migrants interviewed by Reuters said they decided to present an official asylum request after hearing about parents being separated from children when crossing the US border illegally, and about friends making successful requests.
Following an outcry at home and abroad over his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order last week to end the family separations. But over 2,000 children are yet to be reunited with their parents.
The migrants, many with children in tow, told harrowing tales of kidnapping, extortion and murder by gangs in Mexico and Central America. That threat was enough to inspire the perilous journey in hope of receiving asylum in the United States.
“They don’t go through the mountains or deserts anymore, they go to the front door,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, a migration expert at San Diego State University.
But their chances of asylum may be diminishing.
On June 11, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned a grant of asylum to a Salvadoran domestic abuse victim, potentially excluding immigrants seeking refuge from sexual, gang and other forms of violence in their homelands.
Those threats were the basis of a “credible fear” argument that could prevent them from being returned.
That risk has yet to deter migrants.
Many stay near the border in spartan shelters, with rows of brightly coloured tents, or in dingy hotels often charging prices they struggle to pay.
Patricia Flores and her 7-year-old son are among thousands of Central Americans waiting at the border.
After witnessing a gangland killing in their neighbourhood, Flores decided to pay $4,000 to a human smuggler who told her she could just get to the border and ask for asylum.
Flores has been desperately trying to get a meeting at the border but said she had been turned away by Mexican officials.
Her son described how he saw his neighbour shot in the head back in El Salvador.
“My mom said it’s our secret but if I tell anyone, I am going to go to heaven. I don’t want to,” he said, adding he was not afraid. Pointing to his green T-shirt with a cartoon on it, he said that was his “bulletproof jacket.”
Adelia Contini, from Brazil, has run a church-funded shelter for women and children in Tijuana for nine years. She too has noticed a increase in asylum seekers.
“Since 2013, we started seeing more people asking for asylum, but not as much as now,” she said. “Since January, there are many more people, more than last year.”