Migrants who once hoped to seek protection in the United States have found themselves chasing the elusive goal of asylum in a hardening climate against them. Some have been detained for years; others are just starting on their journey in unexpected countries. Still others are too young to understand what lies ahead of them. The KJZZ Fronteras Desk series Chasing Asylum follows some of these people on their journey.
Part 1: Nov. 5, 2025
Alisa Reznick/KJZZ
Federal court data shows more than 2.3 million asylum applications are pending in the U.S. this year. But for Kamel Maklad, even winning protection didn't mean freedom.
Part 2: Nov. 6, 2025
Nina Kravinsky
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KJZZ
Trump administration foreign aid cuts are pinching Mexico’s already overburdened asylum process. That means long wait times for refugees who, barred from entering the United States, are turning to Mexico for safety.
Part 3: Nov. 7, 2025
Alisa Reznick
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KJZZ
The Trump administration cut most of the federal funding for a program providing free legal counsel to unaccompanied immigrant children who are seeking asylum in the U.S. The money was restored under court order, but attorneys say the lapse sent organizations into a tailspin that’s still playing out today.
Photos from the U.S.-Mexico border
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The U.S.-Mexico border.
Nina Kravinsky / KJZZ
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The U.S.-Mexico border.
Nina Kravinsky / KJZZ
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The U.S.-Mexico border.
Nina Kravinsky / KJZZ
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The U.S.-Mexico border.
Alisa Reznick / KJZZ
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The U.S.-Mexico border.
Nina Kravinsky / KJZZ
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The U.S.-Mexico border.
Alisa Reznick / KJZZ
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The U.S.-Mexico border.
Nina Kravinsky / KJZZ
More stories from the Fronteras Desk
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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called the recent reports from CNN and the New York Times “a fiction the size of the universe.” -
The Nogales International Film Festival will screen movies directly in front of the border wall, so people on either side can experience films together. -
Pinal County leaders say the top local prosecutor having partnered with ICE is weakening his office’s ability to try local cases. -
Federal agents are investigating the deaths of six people thought to be immigrants found inside a shipping container at a Union Pacific rail yard near the border with Mexico in Laredo, Texas, on Sunday as a "potential human smuggling event." -
Tucson leaders unanimously rejected a massive data center dubbed Project Blue last year amid outcry from the community with concerns about water, power and resources that they didn’t want put toward a data center. -
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights investigation called out structural problems leading to Mexico’s more than 128,000 disappearances. -
Ancient Tohono O’odham artifacts were found not far from the Arizona-Mexico border – and now the tribe is calling for their return. -
The only person ever charged in the unsolved 2021 disappearance of Navajo elder Ella Mae Begay has been sentenced to five years in federal prison. Begay’s case became emblematic of a crisis fueled by disproportionately high rates of violence faced by Native Americans. -
Reports about a review of Mexico’s consulates in the United States follows the death of two U.S. agents in Mexico. -
A report found eight journalists in Mexico were murdered or disappeared last year, including one in the Mexican state south of Arizona.
