TIJUANA, Mexico — More buses of exhausted people in a caravan of Central American asylum seekers reached the U.S. border Thursday as the city of Tijuana converted a municipal gymnasium into a temporary shelter and the migrants came to grips with the reality that they will be on the Mexican side of the frontier for an extended stay.
With U.S. border inspectors at the main crossing into San Diego processing only about 100 asylum claims a day, it could take weeks if not months to process the thousands in the caravan that departed from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, more than a month ago.
Tijuana’s robust network of shelters was already stretched to the limit, having squeezed in double their capacity or more as families slept on the floor on mats, forcing the city to open the gymnasium for up to 360 people on Wednesday. A gated outdoor courtyard can accommodate hundreds more.
The city’s thriving factories are always looking for workers, and several thousand Haitian migrants who were turned away at the U.S. border have found jobs and settled here in the last two years, but the prospect of thousands more destitute Central Americans has posed new challenges.
Delia Avila, director of Tijuana’s family services department, who is helping spearhead the city’s response, said migrants who can arrange legal status in Mexico are welcome to stay.