Trump's wall plan ignores key change in how illegals get in: asylum requests


SAN DIEGO (AP)

President Donald Trump's plan to erect a wall along the Mexican border overlooks a key change in how people enter the U.S. illegally: Many of them make no attempt to jump a fence or evade authorities; they simply turn themselves in and ask for asylum.

Asylum requests have surged in recent years, especially since 2014, when families and unaccompanied children fleeing drug violence in Central America overwhelmed agents in Texas.

Those who express fear of returning home are often freed into the U.S. with a notice to appear before an immigration judge. It often takes years for the clogged courts to decide asylum cases.

"Migration is very, very different now," Gil Kerlikowske, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection from 2014 until last week, said Thursday. "People are coming up to our ports of entry, walking up and asking for some type of protection."

CBP does not release numbers on how many migrants turn themselves in versus how many are caught trying to avoid capture, but a pronounced shift is underway.

Longtime Border Patrol agents say their jobs are increasingly about changing children's diapers in holding facilities rather than chasing people through mountains and deserts.

Mark Morgan, who resigned under pressure Thursday as the Border Patrol chief only seven months after his appointment, told a Senate panel last month that he never thought buying baby powder and baby wipes would be part of his job.

"I just got from one sector where agents, one of their jobs during the day, is to actually make sure that the food, the burritos that were provided, are being warmed properly," Morgan said. "It takes a tremendous amount of resources to do this."

The 2,000-mile border has about 700 miles of fence, much of it built in California and Arizona during the second term of President George W. Bush, when crossers were predominantly Mexican men.

But that, too, has changed. In 2014, the number of Central Americans stopped by the Border Patrol surpassed the number of Mexicans for the first time. Many of them were women and children who turned themselves in. Also, a Pew Research Center study in 2015 found that more Mexicans were leaving the U.S. than entering, a dramatic reversal.