In Their Search for Asylum, Central Americans Find the U.S. Is Closing Its Doors John Burnett - NPR.org
go to original March 13, 2017

An El Salvadoran child is interviewed by a U.S. border patrol agent after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the U.S. to seek asylum in Roma, Texas (John Moore/Getty Images)

Every year thousands of immigrants come to the U.S.-Mexico border and request asylum — or safe harbor and freedom from the fear of persecution in their home countries.

But immigrants and human rights advocates complain that federal authorities under President Trump's administration are discouraging asylum requests and turning away immigrants fleeing persecution.

Marco Antonio says he fled gangs in La Ceiba, Honduras, who were gunning for him because he had threatened to turn them in. He says he has a bullet wound in his abdomen to prove it.

Shortly after their interview with NPR, a pro bono attorney accompanied the Cabachuela family to the international bridge, and they were finally permitted to apply for asylum — on their seventh try.

In recent years, Central Americans have been surging across the southern border, seeking refuge from marauding criminal gangs and, in the case of women, from abusive husbands.

The number of Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans — mostly mothers and children — who were granted asylum jumped 400 percent between 2013 and 2015, from 918 to 4,656.

Now there are widespread reports that some U.S. officials at ports of entry — emboldened by the new administration's tougher stance on immigration — are blocking asylum applicants.

Read the rest at WLRN.org

Related: Greater Cooperation Needed to Protect Refugees in Central America, UNHCR Says (UN High Commissioner for Refugees)

Related: The Woman Giving Refugee Kids Free Lawyers (BillMoyers.com)

Related: Immigrant Rights: Truth vs. Alternative Facts (Daily News)

Related: The Chances of a Refugee Killing You – and Other Surprising Immigration Stats (Cumulus Media)

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