The mood is festive at Casa de la Misericordia, a migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora — where 22 kids are graduating into the next school year.
It is a far smaller number than the more than 90 students who took part last year, as President Donald Trump’s migration policies push families to put asylum claims on hold, or give them up completely.
The children who attend the shelter’s school sit on folding chairs on the basketball court, surrounded by their families and movie-theater-themed decorations, as teachers announce their names.
But alongside this joy, there’s a sense of desperation.
“We have to wait,” said Rosario, whose two children are part of the ceremony today.
She has been at this shelter for months, with plans to cross into the United States. She said she’s fleeing cartel violence and threats in her home state of Michoacán, which is why KJZZ is only using her first name.
When Trump took office in January, he suspended asylum claims at the border, closing the door for people like Rosario and her children. A federal judge recently overruled the suspension, but the issue is still working its way through courts. Most families have chosen to leave the shelters in Nogales after losing the possibility of getting an appointment to make their case for asylum.
But Rosario is holding out hope that something might change.
“We’re waiting for a change of politics,” Rosario said. “For them to respect our right to seek asylum.”
Trump’s policies have virtually stopped the flow of migrants through Mexico up to Nogales, said researcher Israel Ibarra, who studies migration at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Nogales. The Mexican government’s record of migrant detentions shows a steep drop along common migration routes, including in the state of Sonora.
Many of the asylum seekers who were here before the shutoff are now likely integrating into this border community, Ibarra said.
“These people became trapped,” Ibarra said.
At another shelter in Nogales, San Juan Bosco, bunk bends stand empty.
“This is the first time this has happened,” director Francisco Loureiro said of the historically low number of migrants staying at the 43-year-old shelter his parents started.
This shelter can house up to 400 people a day, and would typically have some 100 to 150 migrants come through daily, Loureiro said. But now, it only receives about 10 to 15 migrants each day, including people who have been recently deported from the United States.
Back at Casa de la Misericordia, those who remain at the shelter are celebrating their school year. Fifteen-year-old Valeria marched with the Mexican flag during the ceremony. Her family said they’re escaping threats and violence in the Mexican state of Guerrero, so KJZZ is also using only their first names to protect their safety.
Valeria says it’s been hard to watch her friends leave the shelter over the past six months. Her grade has dwindled down to just four students.
Valeria likes school, especially math. She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up.
Her family was in the process of getting an appointment to seek asylum in the United States when the Trump administration cancelled them all.
“I want to keep waiting,” her mother Graciela said. She holds 5-month-old Valentina, her youngest child, who was born here in the shelter. She still has hope that policy might change, and they’ll be allowed to apply for asylum in the United States.
But until then, they’re in limbo — unable to go back home, and unable to reach the land they came here for.
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The operation targets money services businesses, which are companies that offer financial services outside of a formal bank, that are suspected of facilitating money laundering.
