The Pan de Vida migrant shelter, in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, housed two hundred asylum seekers in a cluster of yellow cabins half an hour’s drive from the nearest port of entry, in downtown El Paso. The surrounding streets were unpaved, with a few small houses made of cinder block dotting the roadside. On a sweltering afternoon in August 2019, none of the residents were comfortable going outside, not even in broad daylight. “It’s just too dangerous,” said Denis, a thirty-eight-year-old from Honduras. He was with his daughter and son, ages thirteen and seven. A few nights earlier, a truck full of
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