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On a rainy November afternoon last year, eight men held tight to a gray tarp, their bodies pressed against one another as they lay feet to head in the bed of a pickup truck. Most knew one another from Acatic, a Mexican town in the state of Jalisco, where the country’s most vicious cartel has caused the morgue to overflow. Rainwater pooled on the tarp, running in rivulets down the sides and soaking the men underneath. The closeness provided only some warmth, as the men lay shivering, feeling every bump of the rocky scrubland as they crossed into the United States. (Surana, Mejia and Queally, 4/4)

San Diego county’s Republican-dominated board of supervisors filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the Trump administration, claiming that policy changes in the way the federal government treats asylum seekers have strained the city’s finances and health services. The Trump administration ended the so-called “Safe Release” program in October, which gave asylum seekers who had crossed the border assistance in reaching final destinations with family members and friends, the lawsuit noted. (Rosenberg, 4/4)

Overwhelmed by an influx of migrant families, the federal government’s largest holding facility for people caught crossing the border illegally has run out of space and exhausted its budget. The Central Processing Center, located in McAllen, Texas, is known to migrants as la perrera, or “the kennel.” Designed for 1,500 people, it now houses 2,400, according to Border Patrol officials, who gave journalists a rare tour on Wednesday. (Hennessy-Fiske, 4/3)

An autopsy report confirmed that an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy who died while in custody of the U.S. Border Patrol on Christmas Eve succumbed to a flu infection — one of two deaths of Central American children in December that raised concerns about the government’s ability to care for minors at the southern border. The New Mexico Office of the Medical Examiner released its autopsy findings for Felipe Gomez Alonzo on Wednesday, two days after Guatemalan authorities said they had received a copy of the report disclosing the boy had a rapid, progressive infection that led to organ failure. (Hudetz, 4/4)