Humanitarian Crisis on the Border

Courtesy+of+NBC+News

Courtesy of NBC News

Louis Sanders, Lead Staff Writer

 

Over the past week, the Trump administration has attacked the migrant caravan. Reports have come in that tear gas were used on some of the migrants to disperse the crowd.

This comes one week after President Trump suggested that the US military would shoot migrants—he later clarified his statement—and tweeted several times how dangerous the caravan was. This sentiment escalated during the midterms as a campaign method for the GOP.

Some migrants have traveled from as far as Honduras to the San Ysidro, nearly 2,300 miles. Most of the migrants made the trek by foot while others have found other means of transportation.

Rep-elect Ocasio Cortez of New York compared the treatment of the migrants to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. “Asking to be considered a refugee & applying for status isn’t a crime. It wasn’t for Jewish families fleeing Germany,” Cortez tweeted. Her future colleague Rep. Barbara Lee tweeted, “I’ve called for @UN inspectors on the border, and I reiterate that call today.”

Tensions flared after asylum seekers were refused access due to a daily cap—which legal experts, such as Denise Gilman, have speculated that Trump is on “shaky legal ground”—left migrants waiting for weeks for their hearing. Reports say that migrants then rushed the border leading to the gassing of the crowds.