Prez Trump suspends US asylum system

Washington: They arrive at the US border from around the world: Eritrea, Guatemala, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ghana, Uzbekistan and so many other countries.

They come for asylum, insisting they face persecution for their religion, or sexuality or for supporting the wrong politicians.

For generations, they had been given the chance to make their case to US authorities.

“They didn’t give us an ICE officer to talk to. They didn’t give us an interview. No one asked me what happened,” said a

Russian election worker who sought asylum in the US after he said he was caught with video recordings he made of vote rigging.

On February 26, he was deported to Costa Rica with his wife and young son.

On January 20, just after being sworn in for a second term, President Donald Trump suspended the asylum system as part of his wide-ranging crackdown on illegal

immigration, issuing a series of executive orders designed to stop what he called the “invasion” of the United States.

What asylum-seekers now find, according to lawyers, activists and immigrants, is a murky, ever-changing situation with few obvious rules, where people can be deported to countries they

know nothing about after fleeting conversations with immigration officials while others languish in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Attorneys who work frequently with asylum-seekers at the border say their phones have gone quiet since Trump took office.