AP finds 13,000 asylum seekers on border wait lists
Source: Associated Press
AP finds 13,000 asylum seekers on border wait lists
By ELLIOT SPAGAT, NOMAAN MERCHANT and PATRICIO ESPINOZA
May 9, 2019
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) For thousands of asylum seekers, there are many ways to wait and wait, and wait at the threshold of the United States.
Parents and children sleep in tents next to bridges leading to Texas for weeks on end, desperately hoping their names and numbers are called so they can be let in.
Some immigrants complain of shakedowns and kidnappings by gangs and corrupt officials, particularly across the border in Texas. Others have paid to jump to the front of the line; the rest, determined to enter the country legally, wait patiently, even if it takes months.
This is what has happened since the Trump administration placed asylum in a chokehold.
The Associated Press visited eight cities along the U.S.-Mexico border and found 13,000 immigrants on waiting lists to get into the country exposed to haphazard and often-dubious arrangements that vary sharply.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/ed788f5b4269407381d79e588b6c1dc2