After fleeing extortion and threats in El Salvador in late 2018, Juan Carlos Perla, his wife, and their four young children waited in Tijuana for seven weeks before they were allowed to ask for asylum at the US border in early 2019. They then joined the now roughly 68,000 asylum seekers who have been sent back to Mexico as part of the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols program, which forces immigrants to wait on the other side of the border while their claims are pending in US immigration courts. Juan Carlos Perla, 38 From: El Salvador Lives in: Tijuana, Mexico Juan Carlos Perla as told to Fernanda Echavarri If I had known back then what I know now, more than a year and a half later, we wouldn’t have waited to present ourselves at the port of entry.