Here in the U.S., the pandemic has brought a lot of things to a halt.

The open-air office, the luxury apparel market, a maskless doctor's appointment.

One thing it hasn't stopped is the flow of people seeking asylum here.

People are still showing up at the border, hoping to escape brutal conditions in their home countries.

The U.S. government is supposed to hear these people out.

Well, what's supposed to happen is people are supposed to have their day in court.

That's Adolfo Flores.

He covers immigration policy for BuzzFeed News. He says agreements that the

United States has signed and supported promise that people asking for asylum be interviewed and ask

why they fear returning to their home country. It's an international obligation, and it's also

part of our federal law that people have access to this legal system that we have.

But that's not happening right now.

The Trump administration says the pandemic makes it impossible to give asylum seekers a hearing.

Back in March, the CDC said undocumented immigrants could no longer be safely detained at the

border while they awaited processing.

Immigrants and asylum seekers, when they show up at the border and, say, present themselves

to a Border Patrol agent, they are quickly sent

back to Mexico in less than two hours without any access to our immigration court system.

People who are showing up at the border saying, I'm fleeing my country, I'm asking for

asylum, they are simply dropped over on the other side of the border? Yeah, I mean, they're just

like turned back. The government has also scrapped many of the protections in place for unaccompanied

minors, kids who've crossed the border and are trying to stay in the U.S.

...