One of the most controversial Trump-era immigration policies — the so-called Remain in Mexico program, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols — left about 25,000 asylum seekers stranded on the other side of the border while their cases progressed through U.S. courts. President Joe Biden has suspended that program, but immigrant advocates say his administration needs to move more quickly to undo the damage. Although dozens of asylum seekers have been allowed to trickle in, many thousands are still waiting in dangerous conditions for their chance to cross the border, including in the Matamoros refugee camp across the border from Brownsville, Texas. It is the largest camp of its kind and holds hundreds of men, women and children seeking asylum, most of them fleeing extreme violence and poverty in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. “We’ve gotten very little government support on the ground with this transition,” says Chloe Rastatter, a field engineer for Solidarity Engineering, a humanitarian organization that provides support in the Matamoros camp. “They say MPP is over, but there’s a camp of 1,000 people still here.” We also speak with Dison, an asylum seeker from Honduras who works with Solidarity Engineering, and investigative reporter Valerie Gonzalez, who covers the Rio Grande Valley.
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