*By Christian Smith*
A few hundred asylum seekers who [reached the U.S.-Mexico border](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/world/americas/mexico-migrants-caravan-asylum-seekers.html) near San Diego this week as part of a "migrant caravan" will have their asylum applications decided behind closed doors in the immigration court system.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials at the San Ysidro border crossing began accepting requests from some of the hundreds of Central American migrants on Monday after initially turning them away because the processing facility was at capacity.
An application is just the first of many bureaucratic steps in the asylum process, said The Atlantic's Priscilla Alvarez, and the migrants who trekked thousands of miles from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, still have a long road ahead.
"What they'll do next after they go through the CBP screening and are processed there is they'll be turned over to ICE custody," said Alvarez, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
She said the asylum seekers will then undergo a "credible fear interview," conducted by a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer, to determine if they face real danger in their home country.
The interview is designed to establish why a person fled his or her home country and the specific danger he or she would face if they were forced to return. If an immigration officer decides a migrant's claim does not meet the standards for granting asylum, he or she would be sent back, though asylum seekers can appeal.
Border inspectors processed 28 applications on Monday and Tuesday in San Ysidro, the nation's busiest border crossing, down from an average of about 50 a day from October 2017 to February 2018.
Under U.S. asylum protocol, people spend up to three days at the border inspection facility before being transferred to longterm detention centers while their case is decided. The immigration court could take several years to decide an asylum case because of a backlog of more than [311,000 cases as of January 21, 2018] (https://www.uscis.gov/news/news-releases/uscis-take-action-address-asylum-backlog).
The group of about 1,200 Central American migrants started their journey on March 25 near the Mexico-Guatemala border. They traveled on foot, by bus, and atop a train known by the migrants as "the beast." Many of them find job opportunities or safety along the way and choose not to complete the trip to the U.S. border.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/migrant-caravan-reaches-border-but-has-long-road-to-asylum).
President Donald Trump says he will allow Nvidia to sell its H200 computer chip used in the development of artificial intelligence to “approved customers” in China. Trump said Monday on his social media site that he had informed China’s leader Xi Jinping and “President Xi responded positively!” There had been concerns about allowing advanced computer chips into China as it could help them to compete against the U.S. in building out AI capabilities. But there has also been a desire to develop the AI ecosystem with American companies such as chipmaker Nvidia.
House Republicans in key battleground districts are working to contain the political fallout expected when thousands of their constituents face higher bills for health insurance coverage obtained through the Affordable Care Act. For a critical sliver of the GOP majority, the impending expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits after Dec. 31 could be a major political liability as they potentially face midterm headwinds in a 2026 election critical to President Donald Trump’s agenda. For Democrats, the party’s strategy for capturing the House majority revolves around pinning higher bills for groceries, health insurance and utilities on Republicans.
President Donald Trump says a deal struck by Netflix last week to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share. The Republican president says he will be involved in the decision about whether federal regulators should approve the deal. Trump commented Sunday when he was asked about the deal as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors. The $72 billion deal would bring together two of the biggest players in television and film and potentially reshape the entertainment industry.
The two-sentence footnote raised serious concerns about accuracy and credibility.
Real estate software company RealPage has agreed to stop sharing nonpublic information between landlords as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
