A young Guatemalan girl holds a doll she arrived with at a Tuscon motel Dec. 6, 2018 after being dropped off with her family by immigration officials.
A motel and a monastery were used as pop-up shelters in Tucson, Arizona to house a rising number of migrants from Central America entering the United States to seek asylum, photographed from October 2018 through February 2019.
The shelters, run by Catholic Community Services, are way stations for migrants released by border agents that need a place to stay while they figure out where they can settle in the United States and pursue claims in immigration court.
If charities cannot prove that they have the space to accommodate them, migrants are "street released" at Greyhound stations.
At the request of CCS, migrants' identities and faces are kept hidden. The charity feared gangs and others in home countries and the United States might try to extort the migrants or their families if it were known they were in the United States, according to CCS Director of Operations Teresa Cavendish.
Migrants stay at the shelters for a night or two to get a hot meal, a shower, a medical checkup and maybe some legal advice. Volunteers help with travel plans, then drop the migrants off at the bus station or airport. They continue on to stay with friends or family in the United States while awaiting court hearings, according to CCS.
Only about 10 to 20 percent will be granted asylum.
A version of this story ran in the Reuters Wider Image.
A Guatemalan woman covers her head and cries while talking to family back in Central America in a Tuscon motel Dec. 6, 2018.
A Guatemalan child looks out the window in one of the "Big Rooms" at a Tucson monastery February 21, 2019. The "Big Rooms" were created and stocked with "as many cots as the Red Cross could give us," said CCS director of operations Teresa Cavendish after the monastery's single rooms were filled and ICE began planning a street release.
Volunteer Elisco Melendez helps a woman understand her bus ticket while she holds her young son in the comedor of a Tucson monastery where they are staying February 11, 2019.
Two migrants study a U.S. map hung on the wall in a monastery where they were staying in Tucson, Arizona, U.S. February 21, 2019.
A Guatemalan woman shows her ankle monitor, which most adult migrants are required to wear on a case-by-case basis pending their asylum hearings according to ICE, in a Tuscon motel, Nov. 30, 2018.
Volunteers receive migrants as they step out of an ICE van with caged windows in a Tucson motel Dec. 1, 2018.
Fruits, including a bucket of oranges harvested on the monastery grounds, fill the kitchen in a monastery in Tucson, Arizona, Jan. 27, 2019.
A woman traveling from Guatemala, six months pregnant, gets examined by a volunteer medic in a motel used as a temporary migrant shelter where she was staying in Tucson, Arizona, Nov. 30, 2018.
A three-year-old Guatemalan girl runs around the grounds of a monastery where she and her family were staying in Tucson, Arizona, Jan. 27, 2019.
A young boy reaches to put his rosary back on in a monastery where he was staying in Tucson, Arizona, Feb. 21, 2019.
Guatemalan, American, and Mexican coins, along with a few pieces of cereal, sit as offerings at the foot of a small shrine to the Virgin Mary at a Tucson monastery February 11, 2019.
Families eat a donated lunch of rice, eggs, and beans in a motel where they were staying in Tucson, Arizona, Dec. 6, 2018
Volunteer Irene Murillo comforts a Guatemalan woman after calls to her brother-in-law back in Central America failed to connect in a motel room used as an operations office in a Tucson motel Nov. 30, 2018
A man and his son prepare to be taken from a Tucson motel to the Greyhound bus station by a volunteer Dec. 6, 2018.
A young migrant plays with a soccer ball in a Tuscon motel where he is staying in Tucson, Arizona, Dec. 6, 2018.
A young boy from Guatemala plays a volunteer's guitar in a Tucson motel Dec. 1, 2018.
A woman touches her child's face as they go through a registration process with Catholic Community Services in a Tuscon motel Nov. 30, 2018.
A young boy holds his father's hand and pulls at the shirt of a new friend as he and his father head back to their room in a Tucson monastery where they were staying Jan. 27, 2019.
A young boy rides a bike around the grounds at dusk at a monastery where he was staying in Tucson, Arizona, Feb. 21, 2019.
A greyhound bus in a Tucson station shown Dec. 6, 2018.