The Central American migrant caravan is beginning to arrive at the US-Mexico border.
After a grueling 5,000-kilometer journey from Honduras, over 2,000 migrants have reached the Mexican city of Tijuana, bordering California, to initiate the asylum seeking process in the US.
The Tijuana authorities have housed the migrants in sports facilities across the city after an initial backlash over migrants setting up camps at the Pacific Coast beach.
On Wednesday evening, residents protested in Playas de Tijuana, an affluent neighborhood by the beach where some of the migrants had set up camps.
Women and children find shelter in Tijuana before attempting to cross the border into the US. /CGTN Photo
Now separated, and being attended by local charitable organizations, the migrants are in for a long wait before their asylum pleas are heard by the US.
Newly arrived migrants queue up every day at the Chaparral pedestrian border crossing in downtown Tijuana to submit their names to US border authorities.
Asylum-seeks who want to enter the US legally must wait for weeks, sometimes months before they can even speak to US immigration officials.
In the meantime, the migrants face uncertainty over an extended stay in Tijuana.
"We don't know how long we'll be here, but we aren't giving up on getting into the US," said one migrant as he waited in the queue to submit his name to the authorities. "We've come this far, so we have to see it through."
Migrants gather at a square in the border city of Tijuana, Mexcio. /CGTN Photo
On November 19, caravan members will be staging a protest at the border crossing to demand US authorities to increase the number of asylum requests being processed on daily basis. The US authorities are currently processing 90 asylum cases per day, the migrants want to see that upped to 150.
"There are pregnant women and children here who can't afford to wait any longer," said Joel Coyado, a migrant caravan leader who took charge of noting down names for submission to the border authorities. "We need answers now."
How quickly those answers will come, or how many migrants will eventually be allowed to enter the US, no one on either side of the border fence can say.