The Biden administration has urged people thinking of migrating north not to leave their homes.
But for many of the asylum seekers currently living in a growing cluster of tents right next to the San Diego-Tijuana border, the message to stay home is not helpful, nor are the administration’s promises of long-term migration solutions for the region. They left their homes long ago.
They have been stuck waiting for months and years in Mexico because of policies used by the Trump administration to try to deter people from requesting asylum. And while President Biden has taken some steps to change the former president’s asylum policies, there are many still in effect that prevent the roughly 1,500 people living in Chaparral plaza from even beginning their asylum requests, mere yards from the country that they hope will protect them.
“I have withstood everything that a migrant must,” said one Honduran in Spanish, her second language as an Indigenous woman. She listed a few examples: hunger, thirst and men.
Read the full story at LATimes.com.