Several of the approximately 200 undocumented immigrants from Central America who are part of the ‘immigrant caravan’ have crossed the border between the US and Mexico and begun applying for US asylum, activists in the area say. A volunteer group, Pueblos Sin Fronteras (PSF – which in English translates to ‘People without Borders’), tweeted early on Tuesday morning that eight Honduras asylum seekers had been taken in by Customs and Border Protection and begun the asylum application process.
Other immigrants were forced to stay at the border crossing. On Monday, officials with Customs and Border Protection at the California San Ysidro border crossing said that they were full to capacity and could not accept further immigrants, reports claim.
11 members of the caravan have been charged with illegal entry into the US by the Department of Justice. The secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen, released a statement last week saying that those who illegally enter the country or make false asylum claims are breaking the law and will likely face prosecution. In a Monday social media post, PSF revealed that the immigrants were kept waiting over 18 hours before they were denied entry into the US to claim asylum by Customs and Border Protection.
The caravan has been marching southward since first coming together in March in southern Mexico, with the group arriving in Tijuana, a city on the border between the US and Mexico and to the south of the state of California, last week.