Trump's proposed fee on asylum seekers would burden the poor

WASHINGTON (AP) — Asylum seekers waiting to get into the U.S. sleep in small tents set up by the border, depending on volunteers and churches to bring them food and clothing. Some scrape together 25 cents to pay a toll to get on an international bridge where they can use a bathroom.

They've fled violence-ridden homelands, often arriving at the U.S. border deep in debt, paying $7,000 or more to smugglers. Under President Donald Trump's latest immigration proposal, they could face another demand on their meager resources: a fee to process their asylum applications. It's not known how much the fee might be, but any amount would likely be a burden.

"If we came from our country, it's because we didn't have the opportunity to work. We don't have money," said Suanny Gomez, a 24-year-old woman from Honduras who waited in a tent with her 5-year-old son, William.

The proposed application fee and other changes are the latest in a series of proposals from an administration struggling to cope with a surge of migrant families arriving at the southern border. The migrants have overwhelmed federal resources and complicated Trump's efforts to claim victory at the border as he runs for re-election next year.

The fee proposal was part of a memo Trump signed Monday directing his attorney general and acting homeland security secretary to take additional measures to overhaul the asylum system, which he insists is plagued by "rampant abuse." It said the application fee would not exceed the cost of processing applications, but officials did not immediately provide an estimate for what that might be.

Trump is giving Homeland Security Department officials 90 days to come up with new regulations to ensure that applications are adjudicated within 180 days of filing, except under exceptional circumstances. He called on officials to...