US-Mexico Border: US Shuts Border Post as Migrants Try to Cross Inside

Local Editor

Hundreds of Central American migrants attempted to storm a border fence separating Mexico from the United States Sunday amid mounting fears they will be kept in Mexico while their applications for an asylum are processed.

The group of migrants reportedly pushed past a wall of Mexican riot police in full tactical gear before running across canal before the fence between California and Tijuana.

Meanwhile, the US Customs and Border Protection office in San Diego, California, said on Twitter that it had closed both north and south access to vehicle traffic at the San Ysidro border post, before also suspending pedestrian crossings.

The incident took place only three days after US President Donald Trump threatened to close the "whole border" with Mexico if "it gets to a level where we're going to lose control or people are going to start getting hurt."

At least 500 of them, including several women and children, had been taking part in a peaceful demonstration in Tijuana before dashing toward the border in an attempt to clamber over a first metal barrier there.

Video clips posted on Twitter showed large numbers of migrants dashing across a shallow concrete waterway toward the border. Several thousand migrants, most from Central America, have been gathering in Tijuana in hopes of entering the US.

The group reportedly left a larger group of several hundred migrants marching in peaceful protest toward the border carrying signs with messages like, "Trump, we hate you not."

Several hundred made it over the first barrier and were trying to cross a second -- topped with spikes -- when US border officers began firing tear gas at the group, even as US Army helicopters flew low overhead, according to an AFP journalist on the scene.

The migrants tried to protect themselves -- covering their faces, with mothers holding their children close. There were cries of pain, desperation and frustration as the crowd swirled over the border line and back.

Trump has repeatedly warned that the large group of migrants moving through Mexico toward the US included criminals and possibly terrorists, while providing no evidence to support that.

He has deployed some 9,000 US troops along the border in support of the CBP agents.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team