President Donald Trump isn’t the only one angry with Central American migrants encamped outside a U.S. port of entry on the southwest border, awaiting their chance to apply for asylum.
The so-called “caravan”of migrants has also drawn the ire of Mexican asylum seekers waiting at the San Ysidro port of entry, who say the much-publicized new arrivals are hogging the spotlight and making it harder for them to make their cases to U.S. immigration authorities.
The non-caravan migrants, mostly Mexicans from the violence-wracked states of Michoacan and Guerrero, say they have been waiting to apply for asylum since well before the bulk of the Central American group arrived in Tijuana last week. There are currently about 240 people on the waiting list waiting to cross, according to Manuel García, 28, who has become an informal leader of the Mexican group.
Although the caravan migrants are fleeing similar conditions in Central America, their Mexican counterparts have come to resent them because they are attracting much more attention from media and activist groups. To avoid being overlooked, the Mexican asylum seekers set up their own tent city of about 100 people next to the caravan group, but it does not not appear to have elicited much sympathy from local donors.
“All last week, people stopped by with donations asking us if the caravan was here yet,” Garcia told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “We’d tell them no, and tell them to give the donations to us, but they’d say it’s for the caravan.”
Organized by the open-borders group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, the 1,500-strong caravan of mostly Honduran migrants began its northward journey through Mexico in late March. Though it is an annual event, this year’s march received outsize attention thanks to reports from U.S. media describing the ways in which Mexican authorities were helping the migrants reach the border.
Trump reacted angrily to the news, accusing the Mexican government of facilitating illegal immigration and demanding that U.S. lawmakers act to tighten asylum laws. Later, he ordered a National Guard deployment to reinforce border agents.
Undeterred, the migrants began trickling into Tijuana in mid-April, and hundreds more have arrived in the weeks since. As of Wednesday, about 65 of the Central American migrants had been allowed to pass through the San Ysidro pedestrian gate to apply for asylum, according to to immigration lawyers there.
The combined influx of caravan members and Mexican asylum seekers has caused a backlog at Customs and Border Protection’s San Ysidro holding facility, which can house about 300 migrants.
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