Melissa Pinedo, a 27-year-old single mother from Guatemala, has been living in a tent in Reynosa, Mexico, across the border from Texas for weeks trying to find someone to call about a fast-closing window for seeking U.S. asylum.
“There are numbers of lawyers that are circulating, but no one answers. They are overwhelmed,” she said in a phone interview.
She is one of thousands of migrants in northern Mexico left with few options as the U.S. government and non-profit groups wind down a program that allowed for a narrow number of asylum-seekers to be exempted from a sweeping border expulsions policy.