Future Unclear For Northern California Asylum Seekers

Californians worried about family members trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border are reaching out to a San Francisco-based legal non-profit group that helps low-income Latino immigrants.

"We do have a lot of people calling us concerned about their relatives traveling through Mexico,” said Lydia Lopez, who heads La Raza Centro Legal. “We have heard reports that some people have already started turning back because of this new policy. A lot of them are asylum seekers."

Lopez said that, with asylum laws in flux right now, there is a lot of uncertainty among immigrants. She also says there aren't enough resources to help asylum seekers complete their applications.

Lopez said her office held a clinic for asylum seekers last weekend.

"They were concerned about the issue of family separation,” says Lopez, “because as they're going through their asylum claims and as the asylum law itself is being narrowed at the same time by new pronouncements from the administration, some of these cases will no longer be viable."

"The state of asylum law itself is in flux right now with some of the pronouncements we're hearing from the government,” said Lopez. “And so there's a lot of uncertainly. There's not enough resources for all the people that need help with these applications."

Supporters of the Trump Administration's zero-tolerance border policy say it will deter illegal immigration.