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Lopez, who like most asylum seekers under Remain in Mexico doesn’t have a lawyer, appealed the deportation order issued to him and his son, but their next hearing wasn’t scheduled until Dec. 16. Conditions had deteriorated in the tent camp of more than 2,500 asylum seekers. Sometimes they didn’t eat, he said.
After hundreds of migrants last month temporarily blocked the border bridge to protest filthy conditions, Mexican child-protection workers threatened to take children into custody if families didn’t move to a new 300-bed city shelter miles from the bridge.
Many migrants resisted, including Lopez, preferring to stay at the bridge to more easily attend court and meet lawyers offering pro bono services. His chances of receiving asylum were slim: Through September, 9,974 Remain in Mexico cases had been completed, but only 11 migrants had received asylum, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research center at Syracuse University.
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