Caravan and Trump’s zero tolerance

The caravan of over 7,000 Central American migrants continues its journey confronting exhaustion, heat, hunger and opposition from Mexican border police. But if thousands of migrants reach the Mexico-US border, a new world of problems could await them. This is the largest known caravan of migrants to head towards the US border under the Trump administration.

It’s unclear how many of the migrants hope to ultimately enter the US or exactly what would happen upon their arrival. But the administration’s severe policies so far on immigration — along with President Trump’s threats to stop the caravan — give an idea of what the migrants can expect. Their arrival at the border would only begin another arduous journey, one that seems unlikely to end with many of them obtaining asylum.

For the best idea of what the US government would do, consider what happened when a caravan of about 1,500 Central American migrants reached the US-Mexico border in April 2018. Of those 1,500, only about 250 legally remain in the US pending an immigration hearing, according to Pueblos sin Fronteras, a humanitarian aid organisation for migrants. Only three have been granted asylum. Some of the other migrants who arrived were kept in detention or deported.

That caravan’s arrival came around the time the Trump administration began its widely-condemned practice of separating migrant families at the border as part of a “zero tolerance” policy to deter illegal immigration. Since then, the administration has issued or proposed policies that will likely make the process even harder for the migrants traveling to the border now. I think the next group of migrants are likely to encounter one of two outcomes: Sluggish bureaucracy