What Is The List?

For the migrants seeking to apply for asylum in the United States at the San Ysidro border crossing, the first step is to get their names on The List, an informal numbering system that puts them in a virtual line for their appointment with the American immigration authorities.

It is a critical part of the American asylum application process, yet, strangely, its operation has nothing to do with the United States government. It is an entirely Mexican construct that begins and ends on the Mexican side of the border.

That said, it’s a direct result of American migration policy. For years, most migrants seeking asylum in the United States needed only to show up at a port of entry to begin the asylum process, and there was usually no delay.

But the Trump administration has used a system known as “metering,” which limits the number of asylum-seekers allowed to present their cases to the United States each day at certain ports of entry. The system was instituted by the Obama administration in 2016 to respond to the thousands of Haitian migrants who had ended up in Tijuana and the nearby city of Mexicali seeking to cross into the United States.

At the incredibly busy crossing in Tijuana, known as El Chaparral, the metering system caused severe backups and disorder.