Open-air holding areas at the border cleared as processing of migrants ramps up

About 350 migrants who spent days at an open-air holding area at the San Diego-Tijuana border were shuttled away in Customs and Border Protection vans as federal officials cleared the site Sunday afternoon.

The migrants were taken in groups to facilities for processing, a CBP official said.

The move effectively dismantled, at least for now, the open-air holding area that drew criticism as the number of migrants who waited to be processed grew. The migrants complained of cold and a lack of food and water at the site near a water treatment plant, about a mile west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

Later in the day, another site about a mile and a half west — where about 200 men remained — was also cleared, according to Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s US/Mexico Border Program.

Still, hundreds of other migrants remained at other locations along the border, including an estimated 400 in the desert community of Jacumba Hot Springs.

Rios largely applauded the ramped-up efforts to process migrants. He said the conditions migrants faced at the border sites were deplorable.

“We don’t want anyone to be living in an open-air makeshift detention area, and we want to make sure people are fed the way they should be, we want to make sure people have access to drinking water, that they have access to restroom facilities,” Rios said.

He said he believes officials stepped-up efforts to process the migrants because the optics were “terrible,” especially as the end of the Title 42 immigration policy cast a spotlight on the border.

Title 42 allowed migrants at the southern border to be quickly expelled without a chance to ask for asylum. The policy ended just before 9 p.m. Thursday and was replaced with new restrictions that include stricter consequences for asylum seekers who enter the U.S. without making an appointment through a smartphone app.

It was believed the migrants at the site near the water treatment plant would be taken to San Ysidro Port of Entry for processing.

Sidney Aki, director of field operations for CBP’s San Diego office, said Sunday that the goal was to process the migrants and provide “humane care,” including any necessary medical treatment to treat health issues. He said processing can take anywhere from a day to several days.

Rios said most of the migrants who waited at the site will likely request asylum — a process that can include an initial interview in which officials will determine whether there are grounds to continue with the asylum process, which lasts four years on average.

During that period, asylum seekers can be released or held in long-term detention centers.

The efforts to clear the area sped up over the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, CBP vans and trucks made several trips to pick up the remaining 350 or so migrants at the site between border walls near a water treatment plant on Monument Road. The group included single women and families.

Volunteers who handed out water, food and other supplies in recent days cheered and clapped as the migrants got into as many as seven or eight vans at a time. Their belongings were loaded onto pickups.

“Muchas gracias,” a woman said as she waved goodbye to the volunteers.

Another woman added, “Gracias. Dios los bendiga.” “Thank you. God bless you all.”

Later in the day, the last of the migrants in the area — about 200 men — at the site to the west were picked up as the area was cleared, Rios said.

Among the group of men was a 23-year-old Sudanese man who had walked to the site near the water treatment plant to charge two cellphones. Volunteers took the devices and plugged them into a makeshift charging station.

The man said he had spent five days at the border. He said he fled the ongoing fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Asked what he hoped for, he said: “A better life, a good life.”

After the site near the treatment plant was cleared, volunteered loaded supplies in vehicles — water bottles, baby wipes and more — and planned to drive them to the migrants in Jacumba Hot Springs.