By Miriam Jordan
LOS ANGELES — A tremendous caravan of migrants from Central America that slowly trekked toward the southwestern border this week, both captivating the world and enraging President Trump and other politicians, is just the latest of several to stretch north toward the United States in recent years.
Though the current group appeared to be among the largest, two caravans last year each drew about 350 migrants. Some traveled all the way to the United States, where they applied for asylum. Others sought protection in Mexico. Still others dropped out along the way.
In this case, in defiance of the Mexican and American governments, more than 7,000 Central American undocumented migrants have been en route to the United States for more than a week.
“It’s not true that everyone wants to end up in the U.S. Many people in that caravan will seek asylum in Mexico,” said Joanna Williams, advocacy director for the Kino Border Initiative, which works with migrants.
But Mexican officials have said migrants who seek asylum do not have the legal obligation to apply in Mexico, and, thus, many hundreds or thousands are likely to show up at the United States border to request protection.
Crowds of migrants often make the journey over land together in large numbers to protect themselves against drug traffickers, muggers and rapists who stalk the trail. The largest caravans tend to take place during the Easter season.
The last Easter caravan to reach the United States departed Central America in April. At its peak, it numbered about 1,500 people, according to Alex Mensing, project coordinator with Pueblo Sin Fronteras, the transnational group that organized it.
By the time it reached San Diego in early May, the group had dwindled to fewer than one-third of its original size. Many of those who sought asylum in the United States were parents and children who were separated under the zero-tolerance policy that criminally prosecuted illegal entrants. (Mr. Trump halted the separations on June 20.)
Eric Fish, who represented several migrants in their criminal prosecutions in federal court, said that they were typically mothers, children and young men who had fled violence in their home countries at the hands of gangs or intimate partners.
“It was shocking to me that they were being prosecuted when they were coming here to seek protection from horrific violence,” said Mr. Fish, a trial lawyer at the Federal Defenders of San Diego.
Of those caravan participants, 403 were referred by United States authorities for “credible fear” interviews, the first step toward applying for asylum in the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security. More than 90 percent of them passed that step.
Mr. Mensing said that his organization had helped 250 caravan members secure lawyers. So far, three have won asylum. About 30 remain in detention. The majority have been released as their asylum cases wind through the immigration courts.
These migrants must convince an immigration judge that they belong to a particular social group — being gay, transgender or a political dissident, for instance — that could entitle them to asylum, since they cannot argue that they face persecution based on race, religion or national origin.
Among those who have a strong chance of winning asylum is a transgender woman in her 20s from Honduras, whose case is built around her gender identity. After spending three months in detention, she passed her credible fear interview and was released in early August to await the outcome of her case.
“I have no doubt that she should receive asylum. She has a very strong claim,” said her lawyer, Marie Vincent, who is co-director of Pangea, a nonprofit organization in the San Francisco Bay Area that defends asylum seekers and immigrants. Her client has appeared once in immigration court, and Ms. Vincent expects her case to be completed by 2022.
Ms. Vincent, whose organization represents several other caravan members, said the United States had resorted to punitive policies, rather than finding solutions to endemic problems, in its attempt to stanch Central American migration.
“Short-term immigration policies that attempt to address this problem by detaining people or criminalizing asylum seekers don’t go to the root of problem,” she said. “This is just going to keep happening until the U.S. addresses the problems that it contributed to creating.”
But winning an asylum case and the right to live permanently in the United States is a tall order.
Only 20 percent of asylum seekers win their cases, which can take years to wind their way through the clogged immigration courts. Meanwhile, many of them are released from detention, especially families, because children cannot legally be detained for more than 20 days.
The Trump administration condemns that practice, known as “catch and release,” because it enables migrants who are unlikely to qualify for asylum to remain in the United States for an extended time — or possibly forever, though illegally.
“While their asylum case is working its way through the court process, the applicant is generally released into the United States and given a work permit — where they wait, often for years,” said Katie Waldman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. “If eventually denied asylum, they can simply become part of the illegal population that ICE would have to seek out and remove in the future,” she said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Others say that the United States has the obligation to follow this process, even as the number of asylum seekers arriving at its doorstep soars.
“If the majority of people in the last caravan have been determined to have a credible fear, it supports the idea that there is palpable fear. They should be given the opportunity to go before an immigration judge,” said Thomas Haine, a former trial lawyer for ICE who is now in a private practice in San Diego.
Vladimir Cortez of El Salvador was among those who joined last year’s Easter caravan. After eight days in United States custody at the border, where he expressed a fear of returning to his home country, ICE transferred him to a detention center in Adelanto, Calif. He passed a credible-fear interview. With the help of a lawyer, Mr. Cortez, who is gay, filed an asylum claim that revolved around the discrimination that he said he suffered on account of his sexual orientation.
Mr. Cortez remained detained for six months while his case moved through immigration court. In late November, he was granted asylum.
“I was threatened for being a person with a different taste. Thank God I won my case,” said Mr. Cortez, who is 26 and fled his home country alone.
Since winning asylum, he has worked on the prep line at a Mexican restaurant in Fillmore, Calif.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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