Asylum seekers being released quickly

Associated Press

SAN DIEGO

President Donald Trump says he has ended “catch-and-release” for asylum seekers, but in cities on the U.S. border with Mexico, it is catch and can’t release fast enough.

Since late October, the U.S. has been releasing asylum-seeking families so quickly they don’t even have time to make travel arrangements, which it blames on lack of detention space. Families are often given court dates without even having to pass initial screenings by asylum officers. They end up in shelters run by charities, or are dropped off at bus stations in border cities.

From California to Arizona to Texas, volunteers are scrambling to help families until they can arrange transportation to relatives across the U.S.

The San Diego Rapid Response Network, an advocacy coalition, has served more than 4,000 people since opening in a church in late October, moving five times since then because it ran out of space.

In a November tweet, Trump said that “Catch and Release is an obsolete term. It is now Catch and Detain.“

The Trump administration announced Dec. 20 that it would make asylum seekers who enter the U.S. on its southern border wait in Mexico while their claims wind through clogged immigration courts, which can take years. But that “catch and return” policy has yet to take effect while the two countries work on mechanics; a legal challenge appears likely.

So, for now, many asylum-seeking families are being released in the U.S. before even they are ready.

ICE dropped off hundreds of people daily at a bus station in El Paso, Texas, over the holidays.

In Tucson, Ariz., charities have rented motel rooms when shelters are full.