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The Latest: Caravan Of Migrants Prepares To seek US Asylum

Posted at 4:12 PM, Apr 29, 2018
and last updated 2018-04-29 16:12:25-04

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) – The Latest on a caravan of Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States (all times local):
    
12:05 p.m.
    
Central Americans in a caravan of asylum seekers that traveled through Mexico to the border with San Diego have left a cross-border rally as they prepare to turn themselves in to U.S. authorities.
    
Hundreds of migrants in five old school buses planned to eat lunch Sunday before making a roughly 15-minute walk to San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing, the nation’s busiest. Many are fleeing violence in their home countries and will ask the U.S. for asylum.
    
The caravan got attention after President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet called it a threat to the United States.
    
Supporters rallied on both sides of the border with a fence between them. Some climbed the wall to sit or wave signs under the watchful eyes of U.S. Border Patrol agents.
    
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11:15 a.m.
    
With people rallying on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border to support a caravan of Central American asylum seekers, one of those planning to turn herself in to U.S. authorities says she feels hopeful.
    
Maria de Los Angeles said Sunday that she felt confident after speaking with an attorney that she’d be released while her case winds through the courts because she was traveling alone with her 1-year-old son.
    
The 17-year-old hoped to move in with a sister in San Francisco and said she believed "everything will work out." She said she fled her home in Honduras because the father of her son threatened to kill her and their child.
    
President Donald Trump has been tracking the caravan, calling it a threat to the U.S.
    
Some supporters have climbed the wall separating San Diego and Tijuana to sit or wave signs under the watchful eyes of U.S. Border Patrol agents.
    
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10:45 a.m.
    
Central Americans in a caravan of asylum seekers that traveled through Mexico to the border with San Diego and their supporters are rallying on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
    
Before buses arrived at the rally Sunday at a fence that reaches to the ocean, about 100 supporters on the Mexican side of the border marched along the beach, shouting "Alerta" (attention) to the sound of a drumbeat.
    
More than a dozen climbed a roughly 18-foot-high border wall under the watchful eyes of Border Patrol agents. About 50 supporters watched on the U.S. side, where they were held about 20 yards away.
    
President Donald Trump has been tracking the caravan, calling it a threat to the U.S.
    
The Central Americans will test the administration’s tough rhetoric when they begin seeking asylum at San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing.
    
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10:05 a.m.
    
Central Americans in a caravan of asylum seekers that traveled through Mexico to the border with San Diego have filled five old school buses as they prepare to turn themselves in to U.S. authorities.
    
People left a downtown Tijuana migrant shelter Sunday where they have been staying. Asked how he felt as he boarded the bus, Nefi Hernandez replied, "Nervous."
    
Police with flashing lights escorted the buses through the streets of Tijuana to a cross-border rally on the beach, with supporters gathering on the U.S. side of the fence.
    
President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet have been tracking the caravan, calling it a threat to the U.S.
    
The Central Americans will test the administration’s tough rhetoric when they begin seeking asylum at San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing, the nation’s busiest.
    
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10:30 p.m.
    
U.S. immigration lawyers are telling Central Americans in a caravan of asylum-seekers that traveled through Mexico to the border with San Diego that they face possible separation from their children and detention for many months. They say they want to prepare them for the worst.
    
The Central Americans will test the Trump administration’s tough rhetoric criticizing the caravan when they begin seeking asylum Sunday at San Diego’s San Ysidro border crossing, the nation’s busiest.
    
President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet have been tracking the caravan, calling it a threat to the U.S.
    
U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the San Ysidro crossing may be unable to take asylum-seekers if it faces too many at once, forcing people to wait in Mexico until it has more room.

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