New Trump administration rule strands an estimated 18,700 asylum seekers who had been waiting in line for interviews, many for months
By Santiago Pérez Updated July 16, 2019 11:43 am ET CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico—Pedro Luis Ruíz is one of thousands of asylum seekers caught by a new U.S. government rule that makes it far harder for immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to even apply.
In the case of Mr. Ruiz, 49, he arrived in this Mexican border city across from El Paso, Texas, in March and was given the number 12,346 for an asylum interview. He has waited patiently since—taking refuge at the Good Pastor migrant shelter run by a Methodist pastor, Rev. Juan Fierro. “This rule will make things increasingly difficult. There are thousands of people in Ciudad Juárez asking for asylum in the U.S., and this is a way to say: Don’t even come,” said Lucero de Alva, a volunteer who assists migrant women and children in coordination with state authorities and Evangelical groups.
Experts said Mexico is unprepared for such a sharp increase in asylum claims. Mexico’s refugee agency, with a $1.2 million annual budget, is already swamped by asylum requests expected to total 60,000 this year. Guatemala has almost no capacity of its own to receive asylum seekers, said Adam Isacson, an expert on security and migration at the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank.
Many were Mexican migrants who had been deported from the U.S. They would spend one or two nights before taking a bus back home. Central American migrants would also come for a couple of days, seeking to regain strength before trying to make a final, and tricky effort to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
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