Migrant caravan – live updates: White House says 'no one wants to use tear gas on women and children'

He said she should “take a tour of the Holocaust Museum” in Washington, DC, which documents the Second World War genocide of Jews all over Europe. 

Today, the Auschwitz Museum responded with a subtweet of Mr Graham pointing out the Holocaust “did not start with gas chambers” but was a gradual development many critics of the Trump administration are worried is repeating now. 

The port of San Ysdiro was closed for a short period on Sunday amid the tear gas incident and as we pointed out before, the economic costs of shutting down the whole border for an indefinite amount of time would result in a big blow to the economy of the area. 

Here are the numbers, directly from a statement issued by the local Chamber of Commerce: 

Ms Sanders said “certainly no one wants women or children of anyone to have this happen. That’s why we’ve encouraged them to go to legal ports of entry.”

She noted the White House expects “by Monday” to hear from the incoming foreign minister of Mexico regarding a policy for the migrant caravan and the San Ysidro port of entry. 

Per journalists in San Ysidro area and the group running the shelter in Tiajuana, here is the latest breakdown of who makes up the migrant caravan. 

Men do outnumber women, but Department of Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen and White House advisor Kellyanne Conway’s comments on the makeup of the caravan are not wholly accurate either. 

The Trump administration has been steadfast in its defence of the use of tear gas and the president has continued to threaten a border closure. 

For the six million people who live in the San Diego-Tijuana border this could prove disastrous economically. 

The San Ysidro port of entry has a more than $220 billion dollar economy in traded goods.

Approximately 25 million vehicles containing roughly 48 million passengers and more than 16 million pedestrians go between the U.S. and Mexico to go to work and school through that port every year, according to the Department of Transportation. 

He went as far as to say “we suspend our humanity when it comes to this issue, and I fear that it is because they look different than the mainstream.” 

“We are a nation of immigrants. These are desperate people,” Mr Rivera noted. 

At the Tornillo, Texas, camp set up for children crossing the US border alone – the country’s largest such detention centre – the Trump administration waived fingerprint and extensive background checks for employees. 

The Associated Press has obtained a memo and reported it said: “the former director of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement personally signed off on sidestepping requirements for child abuse and neglect checks at the tent city”.

The centre employs approximately 2,100 people overseeing the detention of 2,324 teenagers, largely from Central America who migrated to the US alone to join family members already here. 

Department of Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen also wrote in a Facebook post the use of tear gas on migrants over the weekend at the San Ysidro port was being mischaracterised. 

“The limited number of women and children in the caravan are being used by the organizers as “human shields” when they confront law enforcement,” she wrote about the “predominately male” caravan. 

Ms Conway told the Fox News the so-called “mainstream” media were not portraying the group of migrants who charged the San Ysidro border patrol accurately – they were “just go[ing] for optics”. 

“There are violent elements in the caravan. The mainstream media only wants you to see the children, the families. They’re not telling you that most of the caravan are males traveling by themselves, that of course projectiles and rocks were thrown at our brave men and women at the border,” she claimed. 

These children were not separated from their families at the border, at least not by US authorities. However, the current administration’s policies have resulted in 14,000 children like them being held in these facilities around the country as they wait to join family members in the US.

The children, mostly in their teens, usually migrate in order to meet family members already in the US. 

What was supposed to be a temporary shelter for approximately 360 children, the facility has ballooned to a full-blown detention camp now housing 2,349 largely Central American boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 17.

“It means that any person whose life is at risk in their country of origin must be able to access territory and request asylum in a safe country. And each asylum request should be considered individually,” Mr Baloch said. 

“We have been repeating our call on the U.S. authorities to grant access to the territory and to asylum procedure to those who are fleeing persecution and violence”. 

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch, asked on Tuesday about U.S. forces firing tear gas at migrants, told a Geneva news briefing:
“We are following those reports with concern, we are still trying to understand what transpired there.”

Border management is “a sovereign prerogative of national governments”, but border security and international protection for refugees are not mutually exclusive, he said.

The El Universal poll showed 52 per cent supported the idea while 40 per cent opposed it. 

Just about half supported blocking the migrants’ entry into Mexico, which with this latest caravan was via a crossing point on the Suchiate River bordering Guatemala. 

Around 55 per cent supported the Mexican government taking harsher measures to prevent future caravans.