Yobel Ruiz and his daughter, Milaidy, 5, wait outside one of the immigration offices in Tapachula, Mexico, on March 8, 2022. The pair fled their home in Panama’s Darién Province the month before, after guerrillas kidnapped Ruiz’s wife. Ruiz hopes to be granted asylum and move to Florida, where a cousin lives. He still doesn’t know the fate of his wife. (Photo by Juliette Rihl/Cronkite Borderlands Project)

Thousands of migrants are trapped in Tapachula, just north of Mexico’s border with Guatemala, where they face strict limitations on their movements, few job prospects, poor living conditions and long waits for immigration hearings. Some have labeled Tapachula an “open-air prison” or a “living nightmare” – others call it the southern extension of the U.S. border. Why are they stuck there? The answer is a complicated mix of government bureaucracy, politics and pandemic-related challenges. Meanwhile, moments of anguish and desperation unfold day after day in Tapachula, a city of about 350,000, where migrants who left the turmoil of their home countries realize their journey has been stopped, maybe indefinitely, 1,000 miles from the U.S. border.