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It’s Illegal to Block Asylum Seekers From U.S. Ports of Entry. Border Agents Doing Just That.
[at timemark 2:00 the Asylum Seekers run into the guards, blocking the Port of Entry.]
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are systematically violating U.S. and international law by blocking immigrants at international bridges on the southern border from entering the country so they can claim asylum. Immigration civil rights advocates have been documenting this illegal behavior since late 2016, from Texas to California. It was sporadic then, and appears to have been based at least in part on CBP’s difficulties with handling large numbers of people.
Even so, the practice of turning immigrants away has suddenly become routine, creating chilling scenes of immigrants and children camped out on the bridges, exposed to sun, wind, and rain, amid make-do bedding, scattered clothing, and trash. A few times a day, the immigrants walk to the middle of the bridges and ask to be admitted to the port of entry building on the U.S. side so that they can request asylum. They are almost always turned back.
The Intercept witnessed such a scene on June 4 in El Paso, Texas. At 6 a.m., the sun rose on a 15-year-old Guatemalan boy and his father who were trying to walk across the border to apply for asylum. They did not swim the Rio Grande or otherwise attempt to enter the country illegally — they’d made their attempt on an arcing, international bridge that joins El Paso with its Mexican sister city, Ciudad Juárez.
Here is the rest of their report:
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As Stephanie Ruhle asked on the Chris Hayes Show tonite:
How can Trump claim on one hand that there is ‘no room’ for immigrants who are taking American Jobs — while on the other hand claim the Economy is booming, and unemployment have never been lower?
Chris also interviewed some local Texas officials and care-workers, who said Help Wanted signs were everywhere in their area. They also confirmed in their area, “immigrants don’t take American Jobs — they take the Jobs that Americans don’t want to work.”
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Trump should ask rural farmers how much of their harvest went to waste last year, due to not having enough hard-working people, willing to do the difficult, back-breaking work in the summer sun?
Jobs that Americans are NOT flocking to fill.
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