El Paso: Truck Driver and Border Arrests

el paso: The family decided it was time to go when gangs came to their house to collect, according to CTV. I'd like to say it's unusual, but it's very common, Garcia said Thursday in Juarez, where asylum seekers gather to wait their turn to seek protection at a U.S. border crossing in El Paso, Texas. The 33-year-old fled Mexico's western state of Michoacan a few weeks ago with her husband and five children -- ages 3 to 12 -- when her husband, a truck driver, couldn't pay fees that criminal gangs demanded for each trailer load. Mexicans are increasingly the face of asylum in the United States, replacing Central Americans who dominated last year's caravan and a surge of families that brought border arrests to a 13-year-high in May. A legal principle that prevents countries from sending refugees back to countries where they are likely to be persecuted has spared Mexicans from a policy that took effect in January to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their claims wind through U.S. immigration courts. Arrests have plummeted since May as new U.S. policies targeting asylum have taken hold, but Mexicans are exempt from the crackdown by virtue of geography. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.