In 2019, Carlos and his toddler, Oscar, were on the run.

After repeatedly being stalked and threatened because of their family’s political beliefs, they suddenly had to leave their home country in South America. They flew to Mexico and made their way to the Texas-Mexico border, looking to seek asylum in the United States.

The father and son crossed the border near Reynosa and were detained in the Rio Grande Valley by U.S. border officials for six days — and sent back to Mexico.

“They put me on a bus and I’m seeing where we’re going, and then after around two hours they release us in Matamoros,” said Carlos, in Spanish. (The U.S. State Department advises against travel to that area “due to crime and kidnapping.”)

Border officials returned Carlos and Oscar to Mexico under the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" program, that forced asylum seekers to wait out their cases in Mexico — a policy criticized for returning migrants into a situation that would further their desperation and make them vulnerable to organized crime.

Carlos’s story was part of legal evidence brought to the Supreme Court, ahead of Thursday’s decision to allow the Biden administration to end the program, which argued that Remain in Mexico actually contributed to migrants being trafficked. The Houston Chronicle is withholding certain personal details of the family’s case and is referring to them through pseudonyms, because of their ongoing immigration case.

After being released in Matamoros, terrified and toddler in hand, Carlos turned to the only person he knew in Mexico for help — the smuggler who had helped him cross the border.

Trapped by the cartel

But Carlos, a mechanic who had had a good-paying job in his home country, soon realized he made a mistake. The smuggler brought him to a hotel that was controlled by gang members. There he had to pay hundreds of dollars for shelter and for his and his son’s protection. Then, when Carlos ran out of money, the cartel put him to work to pay his way.

Carlos said they took him to a warehouse run by Mexico’s Gulf Cartel. There he worked from 8 a.m. to midnight — with his toddler — and fixed up tricked-out cars while cartel members snorted cocaine. They didn’t pay him anything. When Carlos brought it up, they told him to stay safe, he needed to keep working.

“I thought ‘oh my God’ what have I gotten myself into?” Carlos said. He worked for several weeks, quietly taking photos and making note of the cartel’s operations.

After more than a month working, Carlos was able to convince the cartel to let him attend his immigration court hearing.

He said at court he showed U.S. authorities photos of the cartel operation, explained details of the drug smuggling routes and pleaded that he and his son were in grave danger if they stayed in Mexico; he was being forced to work for a powerful criminal organization. Despite his photos and testimony, border officials said the only way they would believe his story is if he arrived with a gunshot wound to the stomach, Carlos said.

Requests for comment from CBP were not answered by early Thursday evening.

When U.S. border officials released him back into Mexico, Carlos had a stroke of luck. He met an attorney near the border where nonprofits were working with some of the people returned to Mexico. She took his case because of the evidence he had collected. He had a better chance than most of winning his case.

He had a final asylum hearing scheduled for March 2020 in the early days of the pandemic, when the Trump administration closed the border and implemented another major barrier for asylum seekers: Title 42.

The policy allowed the government to forgo the asylum process altogether using the argument that they were protecting public health. The new policy made matters much worse for Carlos and thousands of other migrants.

A year-plus in hell

Carlos and his son spent more than a year in Mexico — much of it in hiding, for fear of cartel members finding him. He called the border there “hell” and he even moved to another city in interior Mexico to try and stay safe.

“The situation in Mexico is precarious, you have no idea, not being from there everybody wants to take money from you, everyone wants to kidnap you,” he said. “And then having a kid with you, you can’t imagine.”

Then, when President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he suspended "Remain in Mexico." In February, border officials granted Carlos and Oscar “parole” so he could wait for his case before an immigration judge in safety, inside the United States. In Thursday’s decision, the Supreme Court also affirmed that the executive branch has the authority to use parole, as it has historically.

The states of Texas and Missouri sued Biden, leading to a federal judge temporarily stopping the program from fully winding down, which is how the case ended up in the Supreme Court. Now, under the Supreme Court ruling, the Biden administration has the authority to fully rescind the program.

“The 'Remain in Mexico' program, there are very few things that have been as damaging for my clients than that,” said Sabrina Talukder, director of the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Policy Initiative at Loyola Marymount University, who has also represented trafficking survivors. “Essentially, they've created thousands of people that are just sitting ducks, desperate and so easy to exploit,” she said.

Talukder worked with Carlos to include his story in the amicus brief that was filed with the Supreme Court.

Title 42 still in place

Of course, Thursday’s border decision is not a return to a pre-Trump border. The Title 42 policy that grants border officials the authority to expel migrants and bypass asylum protocols is still in place due to a legally similar GOP-led lawsuit. Talukder believes that the Remain in Mexico decision bodes well for the current legal battle over Title 42.

“At the heart of it is the same two legal questions,” Talukder said.

While that legal saga continues, Carlos and his son are now living in the U.S. while their asylum case is pending. Carlos said he’s working now and paying taxes.

He believes there should be more legal channels for immigration, so people can be screened and allowed into the U.S. And if they prove to be a law-abiding, productive person, he believes they should be able to stay.

“Give us the opportunity to work,” Carlos said.