Padma Lakshmi condemns using tear gas against asylum seekers

SCREEN CAPTURE / GUARDIAN

U.S. border guards fired tear gas into Mexico to dissuade refugees from illegally entering the U.S.

PADMA LAKSHMI spoke out against the Trump administration’s attacks on refugees at the United States-Mexico border in a Monday morning (Nov. 26) appearance on NBC’s Today.
As an immigration advocate for the ACLU, the Top Chef host, model and activist has been outspoken against the policies of Donald Trump.

Lakshmi was being interviewed about her decision to publicly share her experience as a survivor of rape, and why the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh moved her to come forward in a September New York Times op-ed. During the course of the interview, she brought up her work as an advocate for the ACLU. She condemned U.S. officials’ tear gas attacks on migrants, including children, at the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday.

"The migrants at our southern border include mothers and small children exercising their legal, human right to seek asylum," declared the ACLU in a tweet on Monday morning, and told the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, "Tear gassing children is outrageous and inhumane."

"Obviously even this morning, coming here, I was reading about all the tear-gassing of children on the border and it’s devastating,” Lakshmi told Today hosts Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie. 

“I am an immigrant, and I really identify with those people. My mother literally came to this country with $100 in her pocket. That is it. And she made a life for me and her and she left a very bad situation for both of us in India. That takes courage.”

Migrants fleeing violence and unrest in Honduras and Guatemala have traveled thousands of miles through Mexico to ask for asylum at border entries, but the number of people and the long process has frustrated some of the refugees.

On Sunday afternoon, Central American refugees, including families with children and infants in strollers, attempted to cross the border into the U.S., from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency responded by closing down the border crossing and firing tear gas at the migrants, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The port of entry near San Diego is the most common place for Central Americans to seek asylum in the US. What those in the latest caravan didn't realize is that Tijuana is already full of asylum seekers from previous caravans.

Under a policy of “metering” asylum seekers, in which US officials limit the number of people who are allowed to enter the port and ask for asylum each day, migrants currently wait two months or longer in Tijuana before being allowed to enter the US to be processed, according to Vox.

U.S. border officials allow only 60 to 100 asylum seekers — or fewer — to be precessed  each day. An unofficial wait list of hundreds of people over the summer ballooned to thousands this fall. Before the caravan arrived, wait times stretched to two months, and the temporary migrant shelters in Tijuana were already near capacity.

“When someone leaves their home and everything they know and belong to, to go to another country, it’s because they have little other choice, and we forget that,” Lakshmi said during her NBC interview.

“We have plenty in this country. Plenty to share, plenty for everybody. And I think we need to remember that the reason we’re great is because of this melting pot of immigrants, and this great cornucopia of influences and cultures and traits and expertise that we cull from all over the world. That’s really, to me, what makes America great.”
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