New reality for migrants at U.S.-Mexico border as Biden asylum ban takes effect

A U.S. Border Patrol agent leads Jessica Leon of Ecuador and her 3-year-old daughter onto a van to be processed in San Diego, California, U.S. June 4, 2024. REUTERS/Daniel Trotta

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Jessica Leon, an asylum-seeker from Ecuador, scaled a border wall on Tuesday with her 3-year-old daughter, setting foot on U.S. soil in San Diego, California, just hours before a new asylum ban took effect.

She and about a dozen other migrants from Guatemala, Colombia and Vietnam who climbed the wall immediately turned themselves in to U.S. border agents. They were directed to walk to the place known as Whiskey 8 - a dusty strip of U.S. territory between two border walls, one dividing the U.S. from Mexico and the second a more imposing obstacle several yards further north.