This is what abandonment looks like.

First abandoned by the hope of making a life in their home countries, compelling them to flee. Then left behind by smugglers, who could successfully get them to the United States alive, but whose responsibility for their survival ends abruptly in the desert. Finally, waiting to present themselves to federal agents to start (they hope) the next phase of their lives, many newcomers find that processing is at capacity. They’re stranded before being formally apprehended.

Photojournalist Go Nakamura witnessed desperation and determination in the border deserts of California and Arizona during reporting trips in November, December, and April, and captured how the US-Mexico border has become one site of an ongoing global crisis. The UN’s refugee agency estimates that nearly 40 million refugees and asylum seekers were displaced from their home countries as of April, which would break records set since the organization’s founding in 1950. While most of these people are living in refugee camps or on the margins of society in countries that are often struggling themselves, an increasing number are seeking a new life in America.

Twenty years ago, the typical person crossing the US-Mexico border illegally—the one federal border policy was designed to catch—was a Mexican adult, traveling alone to find under-the-table work. But after the Great Recession, the demographics shifted: more Central Americans, more families, often seeking out border agents to ask for asylum. And in the last half decade, with new smuggling routes and lightning-fast social media word of mouth, it has shifted again. In 2023, the majority of people apprehended by US Border Patrol came from countries other than Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Nakamura’s subjects hail from Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela—part of a broader trend of South American border crossings given the instability in the region over the last decade. But the people Nakamura met are also from China, India, Turkey, Chad, and Morocco. Some flew into South American airports, then traveled northward to the Isthmus of Panama, crossing on foot through the dangerous jungle, a place known as the Darién Gap because it was generally regarded as impassable before migrants started passing through it in large numbers. From there, they continued up to Mexico, a journey that often takes months and carries the constant risk of violence at the hands of smugglers or governments.

These vivid photos depict the moment when the odyssey has seemingly ended—when people have finally arrived in the United States. What greets them: nothing.

The US government’s approach toward border crossings under both parties has been deterrence: trying to prevent people from coming. This strategy has included physical barriers, like fencing or a border wall, in places where it’s easier to cross on foot or by car, leaving the remote desert as the best remaining option. Those who aren’t deterred are simply endangered. According to US statistics, nearly 900 bodies were discovered along the border in fiscal year 2022; when a cause of death could be determined, exposure was the most common factor.

In a way, asylum seekers are more vulnerable to the elements when they choose to wait for Border Patrol agents and turn themselves in. They are putting their well-being at the mercy of a system that has simply no capacity to accommodate them. Some of Nakamura’s photos depict open-air camps that have sprung up as agents make people wait outside for days before they are formally caught. One woman Nakamura spoke to had been waiting for six days. “She was so tired,” he says, “and kept asking ‘When is the border (patrol) coming?’ ” Another man he met gave up and left for San Diego on his own.

Most of them wait not just because they fear finding their own way in the desert, but because turning themselves in to border agents is the essential first step toward the goal of attaining full legal status in the US by receiving asylum.

International agreements developed in the wake of the Holocaust prevent the US from deporting someone to a country in which they are in danger of being persecuted based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a “particular social group.” Federal law sets the same grounds as the basis for claiming asylum, which, if granted, allows the asylee to apply for permanent legal resident status and, after several years, US citizenship. While entering between official border crossings is illegal, it does not disqualify someone for asylum—the law specifically states that no matter how someone arrived on American soil, they have the right to ask the government for protection once here.

This prevents the government from simply expelling asylum seekers without potentially running afoul of the law. Instead, it forces officials to process them—to assess whether they have the right to remain in the US, and in the meantime to hold them in custody or allow them to live in American communities.

Few American citizens, much less border crossers, precisely understand asylum law. While that means plenty of people are put in the queue who don’t have a strong asylum case, it also means others would qualify if they understood what was being asked. Some people come readily equipped with stories about relatives being threatened by their country’s governing political party. Others may say at first they are here to make a living, only to reveal later they lost jobs at home because they opposed their government, which can also be the basis of an asylum claim.

As more border crossers have presented themselves for asylum in recent years, the immigration courts assigned to hear their cases have gone from overwhelmed to utterly swamped—most people will wait years before they get a chance to make their case. The federal government attempts to screen asylum claimants, deporting those who are less likely to qualify—and the Biden administration has attempted to tighten this screening—but there are only enough asylum officers to interview a small fraction of asylum seekers.

Some of Nakamura’s subjects were no doubt deported without an asylum hearing, as tens of thousands of people are each month. But most were likely assigned a court date and released from federal custody, given overcrowding at border facilities and a lack of officers to screen their claims. In this new era, border crossers from far-flung countries may not already have relatives or acquaintances in the US who can host and support them (in general, asylum seekers cannot work legally until months after they have filed a formal application with the court). They may only decide where to go based on word of mouth—exacerbating the glut of new arrivals in cities such as Chicago and New York.

The Biden administration, like its predecessors, keeps trying to crack down on those arriving now in hopes of bringing crossing levels down in the future. In June, it instituted an “emergency” border regime that considerably raises the bar for people seeking protection until crossings fall substantially—or the federal courts intervene. But a decade of evidence shows that even the most dramatic crackdown works for only a few months, as people wait to learn how to get in under the new regime. The president can declare that the border is closed, but that doesn’t create a force field in the Arizona desert. Turning those statements into reality runs into the limits of resources (agents, space, and money) and the legal prohibition on deporting people to face persecution. Meanwhile, smugglers respond to every shift in policy, changing locations, timing, and methods. If they cannot drop people off at the border, they can lock them in US-bound tractor trailers.

At the moment they cross into the United States, Nakamura’s subjects are not under the control of either government or smuggler. They are in the no man’s land in which no one is taking responsibility or authority over them. They are waiting for the United States to decide what, exactly, it wants to happen next—a question the country has hardly even asked itself.