Helping Asylum Seekers at Mexican Border
5/27/2024 | 1m 59sVideo has Closed Captions
Asylum-seeking migrants at the Whiskey 8 section of the Mexican border receive help from volunteers.
Volunteer groups like the American Friends Service Committee help migrants who arrive daily to a section of the Mexican order at San Ysidro in San Diego known as "Whiskey 8," where they get picked up by Border Patrol and can start the process of seeking asylum. Wendy Fry from CalMatters reports.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
SoCal Matters is a local public television program presented by PBS SoCal
Helping Asylum Seekers at Mexican Border
5/27/2024 | 1m 59sVideo has Closed Captions
Volunteer groups like the American Friends Service Committee help migrants who arrive daily to a section of the Mexican order at San Ysidro in San Diego known as "Whiskey 8," where they get picked up by Border Patrol and can start the process of seeking asylum. Wendy Fry from CalMatters reports.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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-There you go, my sweetheart.
-Adriana Jasso with the American Friends Service Committee is one of many volunteers.
She works at this point along the southern border known as Whiskey 8.
It's in the San Diego sector where migrants from around the globe gather to be picked up by Border Patrol.
This is a scene that repeats itself many times a week.
Sometimes there's a handful of people, sometimes it's hundreds.
This is just one of several camps along the border in California.
It's the last leg in a very long journey for migrants like Nika Shubeetedza from Georgia, who says he came here when enemies of his father came after him.
-What should I do?
I sell everything and start moving in USA.
-The first border barrier is about 75 yards away.
That's the fence that divides Mexico and the US.
Migrants overcome that first barrier in Mexico.
They either go over it or through it or under it.
Then they end up stuck between the walls at a point like Whiskey 8, sometimes for days, where they're hoping to get picked up by Border Patrol to start their asylum process.
Through the slats of the wall, Adriana and other volunteers provide food, coffee, information and other aid that they say authorities don't.
-In the country with the most wealth in the history of humanity, the most technologically advanced country, the most powerful economy, and to know and to hear over and over from the authorities that people have to wait under these conditions.
-Border Patrol says the San Diego sector has become the busiest in the nation, with 8,303 migrants apprehended in the first week of May alone.
By comparison, Border Patrol took 3,311 people into custody for the entire month of May in 2020.
Reporting from San Ysidro, California, for CalMatters, I'm Wendy Fry.
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SoCal Matters is a local public television program presented by PBS SoCal