A stone’s throw from the US border and around the corner from Tijuana’s seedy red-light district, Afghan families say they feel safe inside a first of its kind Muslim-only shelter.
But they are afraid to wander far outside, traumatised by their journey across 11 countries to get here.
Desperate to make it to the US after the Taliban takeover more than two years ago, they say they had no future in Afghanistan – their work alongside US allies made them targets.
So they fled, enduring months of waiting in Iran and Pakistan.
They flew to Brazil and then crossed the treacherous Darién Gap of Panama on foot, where they were robbed and assaulted.
One group of Afghans was forced to strip naked – men and women together – as masked gunmen searched them for hidden money, Shukriah says through tears.
A journalist, she shows photos on her phone of her nine-year-old daughter with a bruised eye. The men punched and beat her children, she says, until they got more money from the group.
“It’s very hard to talk about it,” she says, as her children play nearby.
The Albergue Assabil/Mesquita Taybah shelter, where Shukriah now lives, is noisy and full of life. The kitchen is bustling with men cooking rice, ground beef and beans with cumin and turmeric.
The children play with a ball in a small courtyard but have no space to run. They have not attended school since they left Afghanistan.
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption,
Many migrants say they were assaulted on the treacherous journey across the Darién Gap in Panama
The Afghans in the shelter are desperate to restart their lives in the United States – if they can figure out how to claim asylum. Some have been waiting for more than two months for an appointment with US authorities.
Some migrants wonder if they should cross illegally. They have heard others pass through gaps in the border wall and get processed quickly. But most migrants want to do the right thing.
“We were left behind,” says Sofia, who was a student at the American University in Kabul, which was funded by the United States.
Sofia – like others in the shelter – does not want her real name used for fear that it will hurt her chances of entering the US or have repercussions for her family left behind in Afghanistan.
When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in 2021, thousands of Afghans flooded the airport in Kabul, passing babies to the front of the line and waving paperwork to prove their work alongside the US-backed government.
They were desperate to catch a US evacuation flight.
Sofia says the US embassy offered her a flight out. But in the chaos that erupted, she could not make it through the crowds to get to the airport.
Instead, she went to Iran and then Pakistan, where, she says, US officials told her to file paperwork to emigrate.
After eight months, she still had not heard anything, so with a group of family and friends she flew to Brazil and began her journey across the Americas – by foot, bus, boat and taxi.
Sofia did not travel with Shukriah, but she was also robbed in the Darién Gap between Panama and Colombia as were other migrants we spoke to.
Many migrants pay smugglers to take them through Panama – it has become a booming business there. But the Afghans relied on social media instructions to cross the Darién Gap, following blue plastic signs and avoiding red signs, which indicate danger.