Sandra Schulman
Highlights
- About three dozen would-be asylum seekers from Russia found themselves blocked from entering the U.S.
- on Friday while a group of Ukrainians flashed passports and were escorted across the border.
- The Russians — 34 as of Friday — had been camped several days at the busiest US border crossing with Mexico, two days after the city of Tijuana officials gently urged them to leave.
- The number of Russian asylum seekers entering at US land crossings surpassed 8,600 from September through February, about 30 times the same time a year earlier were processed under laws that allow them to seek asylum under laws allowing them to do so.
- A Homeland Security memo dated March 11 said Ukrainians may be exempt from sweeping asylum limits designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.