On the streets in Juárez, MPP is experienced by asylum seekers less as a policy and more as punishment, less as a law and more as a game with no discernible rules. People wait for months to cross into the United States and ask for asylum, then are handed a set of documents from U.S. immigration authorities that aren’t explained and, because 99 percent of asylum seekers in MPP never find an attorney, that they have little hope of understanding. Once back in Juárez, they must find work to feed themselves, but are often unsure if they can legally get a job. They must find housing, but this is already in short supply. Who is allowed to stay in the United States, who is returned here, and who can survive the violence has become puro suerte, I was told repeatedly—“pure luck.”

For Dana, this meant she did not go out at night. She rarely ventured beyond the block between her hotel and Little Habana, a local restaurant that employs Cuban asylum seekers, where she waited tables for $10 a day. It also meant she had no idea she’d been placed in MPP. All she knew was that in a few days she had an appointment to cross the border. She believed this meant she’d be free to stay in the U.S., and her Cuban friends had planned a going-away party to celebrate. “I did not leave my home to stay in Mexico,” she told me.

This was what she’d wanted to discuss with her husband—her future. But the voice on the phone repeated, “Thank you for your patience. We are currently experiencing a high call volume that may extend your wait time.” After more than half an hour on hold, Dana hung up.

Read: Mireya’s third crossing

Juárez is still one of the most violent cities in the world. And for a migrant or an asylum seeker, it is arguably worse. Four migrants have been murdered since the program began in March.* Kidnappings in the city have since doubled. Asylum seekers are particularly vulnerable because they carry large amounts of cash, or have access to family in the U.S. who can wire them money, and criminals know this.

Law enforcement is not always to be trusted either. In one case, federal police officers kidnapped a Honduran migrant in the MPP program, handed her to a gang that raped her, then extorted her family in the U.S. for $5,000. One asylum seeker was kidnapped outside Juárez’s immigration office, the first building people in MPP are directed toward here, then forced into sexual slavery for three months, according to a human-rights group.

They’re returned here from the U.S. only with the clothes they wore while crossing the border, stripped of even their shoelaces. This is how I found Roger, 18, and Mario, 25, both Hondurans who had met in detention and were sent back to Juárez together. Each carried his MPP papers, a Mexican visa that allowed him to find work, and a date to appear in immigration court in the U.S. at 4:30 a.m. on November 6. None of this had been explained to them before they walked into Juárez’s migrant-resources center.

The center opened in October, initially to help what was expected to be a flood of Mexican deportees from immigration raids threatened by Donald Trump. But it’s now become a carousel-quick orientation building for the recently returned. Inside, the air was cool. A long, bare room with white-tile floors was surrounded by placards for the Red Cross, as well as a human-rights agency and a child-safety outreach group. At the back, a kitchen served saltine crackers and tuna. “Where are you from?” a man who worked at the office asked Roger as he signed his name in the entry book.