WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th March, 2019) Mexican officials are blocking unaccompanied children from a US border crossing in the state of California and also banning children from participating in a metering system that limit daily asylum applications, US Senator Jeff Merkley said in a press release on Tuesday.
"The children are left in complete limbo in a very dangerous border town," Merkley said, based on a recent visit to seven shelters in the Mexican border town of Tijuana. "I met migrant children who had been waiting for many months, praying for some solution to this dilemma."
Merkley explained that children face a stark choice: Either turn themselves in to Mexican border officials for deportation back to their abandoned homes or cross the US border illegally and risk detention in the United States.
The senator said he also witnessed a metering system used by Mexican officials to limits number of migrants reaching the San Ysidro port of entry in California.
"At 'El Chaparral' - the Mexican side of the US port of San Ysidro - I witnessed the daily rollout of the 'book' that is the key to the US policy of metering," Merkley said. "They [arriving migrants] are directed to go to a plaza, line up, and enter their name into a book, and receive a number that will give them the opportunity to approach the border at a later date."
On a recent Sunday, Merkley observed Mexican officials transporting 35 adult migrants in vans to the San Ysidro crossing.
The Trump administration's latest strategy to cope with an anticipated 1 million asylum seekers from Central America this year requires migrants to wait in Mexico for their turn to apply.
