Irene Juarez and her family of 12 were all caught in a land traffic traffic jam. They had to wait for three and a half hours before being able to continue their trip home. One of the family members, who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity, says the road congestion is a threat to public health and safety.

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“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go into Mexico again… There are just too many people dying because the roads get so bad.”

The Juarez family made their way to the border from the US border town of Brownsville just after 6 pm on Monday. This is their first trip to the US since 2007, for vacation.

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In late 2012, a massive surge of Central American refugees fleeing violence in their home countries arrived in Brownsville, Texas. In the year preceding the crisis, an estimated 10,000 people arrived by foot on the south and west ends of the US-Mexico border.

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Many came back to Brownsville, a Texas town of fewer than 60,000 people that was a hub of the refugee resettlement drive in the US after it became clear that many of the people fleeing their home countries did not want to live in Texas.

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“So there came that moment when border towns became too busy and the US-Mexico border became too busy,” said Luis Guadalupe Flores who heads one of the border cities of Juarez that has a population of around 300,000.

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In 2013, the US government expanded efforts to welcome as many refugees as it could. As of the end of August, the US had taken over the task of housing them in the US. The US had already taken in over 50,000 of the approximately 140,000 people who had attempted to come here by a perilous and dangerous route.

The Juarez family was not part of those efforts because they do not have papers yet to go to the US. The other family members could follow the other family members to the US, but they do not yet have visas.

“There have been lots of people who have