Top San Diego border agent claims most in caravan are job-seekers who DON’T qualify for asylum – as he says dozens who jumped border on Sunday snuck past patrols without asking
U.S. Border Patrol’s top agent in San Diego said on CNN that the swelling migrant caravan on the border are mostly economic migrants, not asylum-seekers
Chief Patrol Agent Rodney Scott says groups of border-jumpers over the weekend tried to evads patrols instead of asking them for asylum
‘They don’t meet the qualifications to get asylum here’
President Trump threatens to shut U.S. border with Mexico permanently if migrant caravan is not deported
He called on Congress to fund his border wall, declaring that the caravan is ‘not coming into the USA’
Migrants threw rocks and bottles that hit Border Patrol agents on Sunday at the San Ysidro Port of Entry
They responded by firing pepper-spray canisters and rubber bullets into crowds of people as they neared the border
By DAVID MARTOSKO
DAILYMAIL.COM
26 November 2018
The U.S. Border Patrol’s top agent in the San Diego region said Monday that most people in the migrant caravan that has reached Tijuana, Mexico won’t qualify for asylum in the U.S. because they’re job-seekers, not legitimate refugees.
An estimated 7,000 migrants have traveled 2,000 miles through the length of Mexico from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The Trump administration is defending the southern California border and insisting Mexico deport anyone trying to sneak across.
Media reports have described the migrants as refugees seeking escape from repressive regimes and drug cartels. But Chief Patrol Agent Rodney Scott told a CNN audience that ‘I do not believe that is true.’
‘The vast majority of those, from what we call the northern triangle, they are economic migrants. They don’t meet the qualifications to get asylum here,’ he said.
Scott acknowledged that ‘they can still apply.’ But the Department of Homeland Security is processing only about 100 asylum applications per day.
Applicants have to persuade an interviewer that they have a ‘credible fear’ of harm if they return to their homelands.
The Refugee Act of 1980 lays out other criteria: They must have experienced persecution – or have a reasonable expectation of persecution – ‘on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.’
They are also expected to request asylum from federal agents when they reach U.S. soil, whether they arrive by land, air or sea.
As a group of hundreds of caravan migrants stormed border fences on Sunday, dozens made it through. Scott said they evaded Border Patrol.
‘What I saw on the border yesterday was not people walking up to Border Patrol agents and asking to claim asylum,’ he said.
Agents arrested 42 border-jumpers, including some in a group who ‘passed 10 or 15 marked Border Patrol units’ that were walking along the fence.
‘They were chanting, waving a Honduran flag, and throwing rocks at the agents,’ Scott said.
The Rest…HERE
