CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Under a scorching sun, El Paso Bishop Mark. J. Seitz prayed for migrants at the foot of an international bridge and accompanied an Honduran family seeking asylum to the U.S.

The appearance Thursday was aimed at bringing attention to the controversial and expanded Remain in Mexico policy, which requires immigrants to wait for days or weeks south of the border until they are summoned by U.S. officials to be screened for asylum.

Overall, more than 15,000 Central American asylum applicants have been forced to wait in Mexico while their cases are processed in the U.S.

The bishop, accompanied by a Mexican priest and surrounded by a crush of media, escorted the Honduran couple with their three children up to Customs Border Protection officers to make a claim for asylum.

Both religious leaders, in the wake of migrant deaths, family separations, deteriorating conditions and deployment of more military, condemned their governments for putting the lives of migrants in greater danger. Juarez has an extraordinarily high murder rate and drug dealers and smugglers are reportedly preying on newly arrived immigrants.

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The family was initially stopped in the middle of the bridge, as tempers flared between reporters and border officers who were momentarily unclear about whether to allow journalists to cross into U.S. territory as temperatures topped 100 degrees. The family was finally taken into custody by U.S. officials. Seeking asylum is a right guaranteed by international law.

"We're here at the mercy of the American people," said Joseph Palma from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. "It's an honor to be accompanied by the bishop. We come here carrying only the little hope we have."

Seitz said Thursday's trip to Juarez - Faith Action - was aimed at bringing awareness to the plight of migrants, who face deteriorating conditions on both sides of the border. He pleaded with what he called a morally broken U.S, a nation of immigrants.

"As a Catholic and Christian leader on the border, I am often called to be a doctor of the soul," said Seitz, sweat pouring down his face as he delivered his remarks in English and Spanish in Juarez. He called for a deep rethink of how immigrants are being treated in the U.S.

"Standing here at the U.S.-Mexico border, how do we begin to diagnose the soul of our country?" said the bishop. "A government and society which view fleeing children and families as threats. A government which treats children in U.S. custody worse than animals. A government and society who turn their backs on pregnant mothers, babies and families and make them wait in Ciudad Juarez without a thought to the crushing consequences on this challenged city. ... This government and this society are not well."

The attention underscores tensions in a border region that's had its tradition of tolerance tested while immigration has been in the spotlight around the clock, now for more than a year.

"We learned this year that we in the community are resilient and are truly binational and care for one another in ways people won't understand unless they live here," said Marisa Limon of the Hope Institute, which helped organized Thursday's event.

In Clint, southeast of El Paso, protests continued Thursday outside a Border Patrol holding facility were migrant children had been reportedly staying in squalid conditions. About 100 protesters showed up, some carrying bottled water and diapers to donate, but were turned away.

The Associated Press last week was the first to report that lawyers representing immigrant families said they saw hungry, filthy children with inadequate water, sanitation and no toothbrushes.

During the bishop's visit to Juarez, he was received by Rev. Francisco Javier Calvillo, the director of Casa del Migrante, the diocesan migrant shelter. Calvillo criticized the recent deal between Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and President Donald Trump. Mexico avoided costly U.S. tariffs in exchange for deploying thousands of National Guard troops to beef up its southern and northern borders.

The nations also expanded their Remain in Mexico agreement to include states once described by members of the Lopez Obrador government as too dangerous.

Calvillo also accused the Lopez Obrador government of not providing resources to nongovernmental organizations, including Casa del Migrante, to help with the migrants, many of whom he said face potential criminal violence.

"We need to remember that we're all immigrants," he said. "And we need to treat one another with dignity and respect."

Last year, Mexico's homicides topped 32,000 deaths -- levels not seen since it began collecting data more than two decades ago.

Organized crime controls many of the migrant routes, and migrants are often seen as prized commodity. Criminal organizations hold them for ransom from relatives living in the U.S. or recruit them into their ranks.

Some migrants in Juarez have been victims of murder and rape.

A clash between police and criminals was reported Thursday, forcing the closure of the international bridge in Zaragoza, Mexico, across from the U.S. east side and underscoring the dangers across the border.

The Palmas said they were in Juarez for more than two weeks and had survived two kidnapping attempts, sleepless nights and hunger.

"We don't want to be here," Tania Palma said before crossing into the U.S. "We appreciate the help from some kind people, but we made the sacrifice to leave our homeland so that our children can have a better life, a better future."

Calvillo said more than 6,000 migrants have been returned to Juarez from the U.S. after being told they'd have to wait to have their asylum cases heard. Anywhere from 100 to 200 migrants are returned to Juarez daily.

On Wednesday, an association of U.S. asylum officers urged a federal appeals court to block the administration from continuing its Remain in Mexico policy, saying the policy is "fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our nation."

The labor group filed a friend-of-the-court brief that sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and others who have filed challenges to Remain in Mexico, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols program.

"We Americans need our hearts checked," Seitz said. "Our hearts have grown too cold and hard and that bodes ill for the health of our nation."