Around 200 Haitians and Africans have requested political asylum in the U.S. at the San Ysidro Port of Entry during the last four days. It took them five months to reach Tijuana after learning of recent steps from the American government to facilitate the entrance of refugees into the country, or so they have been told. They have been sleeping outside of the pedestrian crossing from Tijuana to San Diego for three nights.
Stanley Pierre-Lys, a Haitian native living in Tijuana for the past seven years, is acting as a translator to help three families find lodging at the Migrant's House and other shelters, since eight out of the 34 migrants are minors. Almost 160 of them have already been interviewed by customs agents.
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The CBP, Customs and Border Protection, did not release the amount of requests it received, preferring to wait until they finish helping these migrants, since some of them come from Mexico's southern states. Once they cross into the U.S., letting them stay or repatriating them is responsibility of their federal government. That means they won't be going back to Mexico, according to the National Institute of Migration (INM), where only 34 of these Haitian and African migrants where registered.
Father Patrick Murphy, director of Tijuana's Migrant House shelter, says that "the CBP takes in 9 cases every 12 hours, which means that the migrants' stay in Tijuana could last until the last Saturday of May."
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ernesto.eslava@sandiegored.com
Translated by axel.alcala@sandiegored.com
