EL PASO -- Immigration advocates are accusing U.S. border guards of refusing asylum-seekers entry to the U.S. at a bustling pedestrian bridge into the downtown of this city next to the Rio Grande.

It isn’t the first time, nor the only port of entry. But the accusation that people are again being illegally refused the opportunity to apply for asylum comes as tensions flare over “zero tolerance” measures escalating the crackdown on legal and illegal immigration by the Trump administration.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say they are doing the best job they can with limited space for immigrants and limited resources. Immigration advocates say the extreme immigration enforcement is inhumane, and is taking a toll on El Paso and other cities along the border.

In recent months, migrant children have been separated from parents, immigration judges have been ordered to speed up cases and federal prosecutors have been instructed to seek criminal charges against anyone who crosses the border unlawfully. And a parade of federal officials including U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen have all made recent visits to the border to trumpet the new policies.

Women carrying children in their arms stand up to protest the opening remarks of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen (left) during Nielsen's opening remarks before Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing last month on Capitol Hill. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / The Associated Press)

"Federal authorities are essentially disrupting our border existence, our way of life of people going back and forth to work, shop, visit relatives," says El Paso attorney Carlos Spector. "They're trying to deter asylum seekers, and at the same time threaten everyone else... the common denominator with this and everything we've been living is punishment, criminalization and now family separation as a deterrence."

Two weeks ago, a reporter for The Dallas Morning News walking from Juarez into El Paso on the pedestrian bridge saw two CPB agents standing by the middle of the bridge, under a shaded canopy along the pedestrian walkway. The sight of agents was unusual. They were standing at the line where the U.S. boundary begins, selectively checking crossers, adding another layer of security before pedestrians can reach the official checkpoint where visitors are asked to declare their citizenship. Those seeking refuge must also get to the official checkpoint to officially request asylum.

Complaints about asylum-seekers not being allowed to ask for refuge are received “multiple times and on a daily basis,” along the Texas border, said Houston-based attorney Edgar Saldivar of the ACLU of Texas.

One recent case of Central American asylum seekers being turned back after they entered U.S. territory, but before they had the opportunity to apply for asylum at the border checkpoint, was first reported by Texas Monthly. In that case, Ruben Garcia, founder of Annunciation House, a nonprofit that helps immigrants and refugees in El Paso, said CBP agents simply told certain border-crossers they couldn't receive them. That didn't allow the immigrants to get on U.S. soil and tell them of their fears and need for asylum, he said.

"If you look indigenous and you look Central American, they will stop you," Garcia told The Dallas Morning News. "They never ask why they are coming. They just say we can't receive you."

A group of a dozen people last Saturday was followed by Annunciation House staff and volunteers. Three got past the border and CFB officers and walked to the border checkpoint to make their asylum plea, but another nine Central Americans didn’t get past CFB officers who were on the bridge ahead of the border checkpoint, Garcia said.

Garcia said one sunburned Guatemalan woman holding her 10-month-old son in her arms who was identified only as Juana did manage to get across the international boundary line. “The supervisor says, ‘Take her in. She is already in,’ “ Garcia recalled.

Then, Juana told them, “I fear for my life,” Garcia said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said, in written statements, that they are trying to manage the flow of immigrants with what they portray as finite resources, involving translators to detention space. Case complexity plays a role, too, they said in statements.

In general, the spokesman did say, “Individuals who are found to have a credible fear are referred to immigration court, where they may apply for relief from removal, including asylum..."

But when asked more directly if CBP refuses to allow immigrants onto U.S. soil to ask for asylum at the El Paso bridge checkpoint, the officer in an email, “The statement is all we have at this time.”

Others turned away

Complaints about asylum-seekers not being allowed to ask for refuge date back to at least 2016, immigration lawyers say. That’s when there was a renewed border surge of immigrant families and immigrant minors travelling alone from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

"We really saw an uptick of this practice in late October, November, leading into the year of 2018," said Karolina Walters, a lawyer with the American Immigration Council. "It is not just in Tijuana and El Paso."

Months before, the American Immigration Council filed a federal suit in California challenging the alleged practice of turning away asylum seekers at land ports along the entire length of the 2,000-mile border. The case is still pending and the U.S. government seeks its dismissal.

One Honduran man, identified in the lawsuit as Jose Doe, said he tried to ask for asylum in Laredo, but U.S. border officials “misinformed” him about his rights and denied him entry, according to the suit. The suit alleges the Honduran and his family were threatened by gangs in Honduras and, then again, by gangs in Nuevo Laredo.

Saldivar of the ACLU said asylum-seekers, by law, should present themselves at ports of entry. Immigration law, the U.S. Constitution and international law guarantee their right, once they are on U.S. soil, to due process. The 1951 Refugee Convention says a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. The Refugee Convention also says that those seeking asylum shouldn't be punished for illegal entry if they present themselves without delay.

But that doesn’t mean a Central American who makes the 2,000-mile trek to the U.S., fleeing violence or danger in their homeland, necessarily understands those rights. Federal agents can walk forward on the bridge, remaining on U.S. soil but intimidating potential refugees by asking for IDs and saying centers are full, advocates say.

Saldivar said claims that the CBP is doing the best it can with stretched resources isn’t a legitimate reason for turning people away. “That is one of their common excuses,” he said, “But, again, it is unclear what steps they are taking to ensure that people have access to asylum by the law.”

Demands of the crackdown

There’s no question that resources are stretched thin at the border. But there is a question about which resources are being stretched thin.

In April and May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions went to the border in California to announce that the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security would unreel even tougher "zero tolerance" policies against what was called unlawful immigration.

“If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” Sessions said. “It’s that simple. If you smuggle illegal aliens across our border, then we will prosecute you. If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and the child will be separated from you as required by law.”

Among the most controversial of the new measures is the systematic separation of migrant children from their parents when families cross the border seeking asylum. NBC reported that the federal government oversees shelters that care for more than 11,000 unaccompanied children.

About 100 shelters used for unaccompanied immigrant children are now so full the federal government may send some children to military bases, including Fort Bliss in El Paso, according to The Hill.

It's far more common for immigrants who cross the border unlawfully to be processed administratively though the immigration courts. Those courts were already struggling with a huge backlog when Trump took office in 2017. It has now soared by more than 100,000 cases to about 700,000 cases.

Criminal charges for crossing the border were used in some cases in the administrations of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but recent policy changes through the Justice Department call for “100 percent of illegal Southwest Border crossings” to be prosecuted by the federal criminal courts for a nonviolent offense known as improper entry, a misdemeanor. A border reentry can be prosecuted as a felony.

The heavier caseload is already showing in the federal criminal courts: Federal criminal prosecutions of those apprehended by CBP at the Mexican border jumped about 30 percent in April over March, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

It’s clear that Garcia in El Paso feels overwhelmed by all the policy changes. His next move will to organize more witnesses of bridge crossings--and not just in El Paso. But, he adds, “Our resources are very limited.”