Mexican Government Demands Investigation After U.S. Fires Tear Gas At Asylum Seekers

The Mexican government is demanding a full investigation after U.S. border authorities fired tear gas Sunday into a crowd of Central American asylum seekers as they tried to push their way through the heavily militarized border near San Diego. Among those attacked were mothers and small children, who were left gagging and screaming as tear gas spread. The migrants are mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, and are fleeing widespread violence, poverty and mass unemployment. The Border Patrol’s use of tear gas has been widely condemned. Trump is now urging Mexico to deport the thousands of Central American migrants who are at or approaching the U.S. border in an attempt to seek asylum.

Pedro Rios, the director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S./Mexico Border Program, witnessed U.S. border agents using tear gas on Central American migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday. Rios said, “I was gathered with the number of people on the U.S. side, and we were witnessing as many of the migrants were coming over to the primary fence next to the pedestrian crossing-way in San Ysidro. Shortly thereafter, Border Patrol agents began firing what seemed to be these gas canisters into the crowd. We heard popping noises and whizzing noises. We also witnessed how a helicopter flew down low enough to use its rotors to push this plume of smoke, of tear gas into the canal where many of the migrants were gathering and had formed. It was clearly an aggressive action meant to debilitate all of the people who were there, and my concern especially was for the children who were breathing in these toxic fumes."