Mexico opens shelter for overflow of Ukrainians waiting to cross US border

Mexican authorities have converted a sports complex near the U.S. border into a shelter to house the wave of thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine and seeking to enter the United States.

Roughly 1,700 Ukrainian refugees have descended on Tijuana, Mexico, in recent weeks hoping to claim asylum to enter the U.S., according to Mexican authorities. Hundreds of these Ukrainian asylum-seekers in need of housing were transferred to the temporary shelter less than a 2-mile walk to the San Ysidro Port of Entry, Mexican officials said on Monday.

"They will continue to arrive," Enrique Lucero, Tijuana's migration affairs director, said on Monday, according to a report.

Lucero said 400 Ukrainians, 30% of them children, arrived in Tijuana on Saturday and Sunday after entering the country via airports in Cancun and Mexico City.