TIJUANA RIVER VALLEY — (KGTV) — The crowd of migrants at a border wall about 10 minutes away from many popular outlet stores was noticeably larger than last week. At least 100 people and dozens of children could be seen in one area accessible by car.
Migrants held their hands out through the wall asking journalists to charge their phones, which had died.
One migrant told 10News reporter Austin Grabish he had just been separated from his wife and their baby after the child fell ill.
The family came all the way from Kazakhstan.
“We have sharp reasons,” the told migrant told Grabish through Google Translate when asked why they were coming to America. He said his wife is fleeing persecution.
Immigration attorney Pedro Chavez runs a non-profit that connects refugees with attorneys.
He has offices in Tijuana and San Diego and said he’s surprised at how unprepared many migrants are when they arrive at the border.
Chavez said a tremendous amount of evidence is needed to make a successful asylum claim.
And he thinks the end of Title 42 on Thursday will make it a lot harder for some migrants to claim asylum as the government starts to expedite case processing.
“It means less evidence that I can collect as an attorney, that the asylum seeker can collect, which means that their odds of success are going to be greatly diminished just because they can’t prove their stories as well as they otherwise could have.”
He said because migrants will be processed under Title 8 when Title 42 ends they could find themselves subject to a five-year ban from the United States for entering illegally if an officer finds their asylum claim isn’t valid. They could be also subject to criminal prosecution.
