O n a hot, stormy Monday afternoon in September, a Mexican government van labeled Gobernación pulled up to a series of large tents set up in a parking lot in Tapachula, a city near the Guatemalan border.

One by one, men, women and children, many wearing clothing received in U.S. government custody, stepped out of the van and followed Mexican immigration officials inside a tent with rows of chairs arranged as though for a lecture. None of the new arrivals was wearing shoelaces, removed so those in U.S. custody don’t use them to attempt suicide.

From beneath a colorful canopy, the voice of a nearby vendor called out his wares, which included cigarettes and shaved ice. A sign hanging on the fence around the tents read “México te abraza,” or “Mexico embraces you.”

The immigration official

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