Only about a quarter of the lanes at the San Ysidro Port of Entry were open Saturday morning, prompting long delays of more than four hours as a group of migrants protested for a second day in the area.
Telemundo 20 first reported that asylum seekers were gathering closer to the border on Friday. Some held up signs with messages, written in Spanish, like “children are suffering” and “we are in danger.”
They hoped to bring awareness about the slow process of securing legal entrance into the U.S.
Dozens of U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents were seen in the area.
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By 10 a.m. on Saturday, officials had nine of the 34 regular lanes open between San Diego and Tijuana. About three SENTRI lanes were also open.
A CBP spokesperson said several lanes were temporarily closed for security purposes to ensure the safety of the officers and the traveling public. The group was only impacting vehicle crossings and had no impact on pedestrian entry.
"The impacted lanes were on the eastern side of the border crossing, nearest the lanes typically used to process SENTRI vehicle traffic," CBP spokesperson said.
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A CBP spokesperson told NBC 7 the group dispersed at around 1:30 p.m. They advised due to the congestion from earlier in the day, wait times will continue to remain high into the evening.
The vehicle wait times, calculated by NBC 7’s Border Traffic app, estimated that the standard wait time was three and a half hours by 5 p.m. on Saturday. The SENTRI line decreased from an hour wait at noon to 15 minutes by 5 p.m.
