‘Thought we’d made it’: new Biden rule leaves asylum seekers in limbo

Those migrating from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela dumped back in Mexico after being expelled at US border

Hector Gonzalez left Cuba just before Christmas, hoping to claim asylum in the US. After flying to Nicaragua, Gonzalez and his wife travelled overland through Mexico and crossed the Rio Grande with at least 200 other Cubans in the early hours of 8 January.

Exhausted but relieved to have made it safely to the US, Gonzalez and the others filled out the forms and had their fingerprints and photographs taken by border officials in Eagle Pass, Texas. As they waited inside an immigration detention centre, spirits were high.