Dozens of Asylum-Seeking Migrants Stopped at Border, But Pledge Defiance

Border marker, via Border Patrol.

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

Dozens of asylum-seeking migrants who traveled more than a month from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border are defiantly pledging to remain outside an immigrant processing center until they are admitted into the country.

Border Patrol officials alerted the migrants, many traveling with children, that they couldn’t be processed because of space constraints.

“CBP facilities at capacity at San Ysidro. They won’t be taking any more until space becomes available,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said in a statement Sunday afternoon. “At this time, we have 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.”

But when space opens and “resources become available,” officers “will be able to take additional individuals into the port for processing.

The monthlong journey of more than 1,000 migrants began in southern Mexico near the Guatemala border. They traveled by bus, train and foot during, with many saying that were escaping violence and persecution in their home countries.

If migrants manage to get processed, they would be taken a detention center and interviewed by an asylum officer. But whether the U.S. plans to offer asylum remains unclear.

President Trump last week pledged to “stop” the caravan, but the migrants appeared ready for a possible showdown.

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