CBP officials: Asylum seekers must use designated ports of entry

Hundreds of migrants unaffiliated with the migrant caravan at the San Luis Port of Entry have been waiting patiently for the past few months to go through the vetting process set by Customs and Border Patrol when seeking asylum.

Mothers and fathers with small children make up many of the people in line outside the gates of the San Luis Port of Entry in Mexico.

Entering the United States at other than a port of entry is illegal and those will seek prosecution who cross the border illegally, said Anthony Porvaznik, Chief Patrol Agent Yuma Sector.

“We continue to reiterate that the legitimate place along the border to claim asylum is at a designated port of entry,” Porvaznik said.

The process for asylum seekers starts with screenings and health evaluations. This is a process that takes CBP up to 72 hours per person or family unit, according to Customs and Border Protection.

“We have large numbers of individuals seeking asylum at the moment…we do not have the capacity to process them at the moment but these individuals are waiting,” said Petra Horne, Acting Director of field operations, on Nov. 21 in a press conference.

The process can sometimes take longer than the 72-hour hold because CBP can only work as fast as ERO does, said CBP.

“The challenge becomes when we are not able to transfer these individuals that we have processed over to Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), who is responsible for taking them,” said Horne. “It is not that we are lacking a capacity to process these individuals, our capacity is to hold them and be able to process.”

Each member of any family or person being processed is held in a holding unit where they are evaluated by a physician before being turned over to Enforcement and Removal Operations.

“If we get a family unit that we have to separate due to a medical condition, that automatically prohibits us from putting other individuals in the room with them because we don’t want to contaminate these individuals,” Horne said.

The San Luis port of entry is the second largest crossing in the Tucson field office for passenger-vehicle traffic.