The showdown over Trump’s border wall came as riot police in northern Mexico blocked hundreds of desperate Central American migrants Wednesday as they tried to escape an abandoned factory complex where they’ve been imprisoned while waiting for the U.S. to process their asylum claims. More than 1,700 migrants have been held in the maquiladora in the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras since February 5, after they arrived in a caravan of people seeking asylum in the U.S. The vast majority have remained prisoners at the site, after the Trump administration adopted a “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers—processing just 15 asylum applications per day at the nearby Eagle Pass border crossing. This is one of the migrants speaking with the Texas-based immigrant rights group RAICES.

Central American migrant: “We are not allowed to go outside. They have locked us up as prisoners. We need organizations to support us with hats and gloves, or with bedding and scarves. That’s what we need, because the cold is tremendous. And the real truth is that there are children here. There are sick people. There are seniors. And the truth is, we’re in an abandoned factory, and now we’re using it as a shelter.”