Central American asylum seekers stranded at US border for second day

US border inspectors said the nation’s busiest crossing facility did not have enough space to accommodate them.

Central American migrants traveling with a caravan gather at the border wall, some sitting on top of it, look toward the U.S. from Mexico during a gathering of migrants living on both sides of the border, on the beach where the border wall ends in the ocean, in Tijuana, Mexico, Sunday, April 29, 2018. U.S. immigration lawyers are telling Central Americans in a caravan of asylum-seekers that traveled through Mexico to the border with San Diego that they face possible separation from their children and detention for many months. They say they want to prepare them for the worst possible outcome. (AP Photo/Hans-Maximo Musielik)

About 200 Central American asylum seekers are waiting on the Mexican border with San Diego for a second day to turn themselves in to US border inspectors, who said the nation’s busiest crossing facility did not have space to accommodate them.

After a month-long journey across Mexico under the Trump administration’s watchful eye, the asylum seekers faced an unexpected twist on Sunday when US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing facility had “reached capacity”.

The agency said in a statement on Monday that it had no estimate when the location would accept new asylum application cases.

About 50 people, many of them women and children, camped overnight on blankets and backpacks in Tijuana, outside the Mexican entrance to the border crossing.

Another 50 asylum seekers were allowed past a gate controlled by Mexican officials on Sunday to cross a long bridge but were stopped at the entrance to the US inspection facility at the other end.

They waited outside the building, technically on Mexican soil, without word of when US officials would let them try to claim asylum.

Irineo Mujica, an organiser of the migrant caravan, said asylum-seekers who crossed the bridge remained in a waiting area on Mexican soil on Monday.

He alleged that US authorities were refusing entry in an effort to dissuade people from trying.

“When they say they reached capacity, it’s just nonsense from (US authorities) so they can abandon, not attend to, and evade their responsibilities in asylum cases,” said Mr Mujica, of the advocacy group Pueblos Sin Fronteras.

Migrants prepare to cross the border from Tijuana (Hans-Maximo Musielik/AP)

The San Ysidro border inspection facility that divides San Diego from Tijuana can hold about 300 people, meaning the bottleneck may be short-lived.

The agency processed about 8,000 asylum cases between October and February at the crossing, or about 50 a day.

Thousands of Haitians seeking to turn themselves in overwhelmed US border inspectors at the San Diego crossing in 2016, leading to the creation of a ticketing system for them.

At one point, Haitians had to wait in Tijuana for more than five weeks for their turn.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticised the caravan since it started in Mexico on March 25 near the Guatemala border and headed north to Tijuana, telling campaign supporters in an email last week that it had to be stopped.

His broadsides came as his administration vowed to end what officials call “legal loopholes” and “catch-and-release” policies that allow people requesting asylum to be released from custody into the US while their claims make their way through the courts, which can take years.

“Catch and release is ridiculous,” Mr Trump said Monday at a news conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

“If they touch our property, if they touch our country, essentially you catch them and you release them into our country. That’s not acceptable to anybody.”