What happens to immigrants once they leave US detention centers

Buses arrive throughout the day at the McAllen, Texas, bus station with immigrants released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers and allowed to stay in the US while their cases are processed. Between October 2018 and March 2019, about 268,044 immigrants were detained at the border, according to US border authorities.

Once off the Homeland Security bus, immigrants wait for a border patrol agent to hand them over to a volunteer from the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV). Due to the high number of families crossing the border and the scale of the humanitarian crisis overwhelming the US government, civilian organizations have mobilized to help immigrants at the Texas-Mexico border.

At CCRGV's Humanitarian Respite Center, people can eat, shower and sort themselves out before traveling to friends or family who will host them while they await immigration court hearings. Up to 800 immigrants arrive at the center each day. "Neither political side in the US appears to have an answer," says Brianna Trifiletti, a helper at the center. "The solution has to come in Central America."

Once immigrants secure a bus ticket — typically bought by a contact in the US — they are taken back to the Greyhound station. Here volunteer Melanie Domingez uses a US map to indicate to immigrants — many of whom only speak an indigenous language — where they need to change buses. "It's busy but also rewarding as I was an immigrant once," Domingez says. "I feel it is my place to be here."

East of McAllen, stretching for miles along the border, is a wall built in the 2000s. Then the number of immigrants apprehended at the border — mostly single men — averaged 81,550 per month. Now the average is 32,012 per month and the dilemma is a different one as those coming are mostly immigrant families with young children, who are harder to detain and process.

The Rio Grande acts as the Texas portion of the US border with Mexico. "Every week I hear about another drowning," says Jennifer Harbury, who works with people fleeing violence in Central America. "A mother paid the smugglers to take her and three children across on a raft. It hit some turbulence and her two-year-old fell in. The boat man said, 'We don't stop mid-river,' as the child went under."

At the Mexican end of the International Gateway Bridge, which links the cities of Matamoros and Brownsville, immigrants check lists giving the order in which people will be allowed to cross and approach the US side. This so-called "metering" of immigrants is one of several new policies introduced by the Trump administration that many argue contravenes both US and international asylum laws.

At another bridge, a Nicaraguan mother and daughter wait, hoping they can claim asylum. One factor in the US immigration debate is whether those coming should get asylum, meant for people fleeing persecution rather than economic hardship. "I had a job as a civil engineer, but I still came here," says 27-year-old Erving from Nicaragua. "We are fleeing violence, it's not about trying to find jobs."

Back at McAllen's Greyhound bus station, 9-year-old Valeria from Honduras waits for the bus that will take her and her family north. Immigrants tend to be in good spirits once they have rested and been fed at the CCRGV center. "But there is still fear," says a Honduran woman. "I don't know if after my court hearing I will be able to stay, or whether I will be deported."