Gaby Zavala was in her obstetrician’s waiting room in Brownsville, Texas, when she first saw the video. Across the river in Matamoros, Mexico, a 15-year-old Honduran girl had been swept away by the current as she bathed in the Rio Grande. While an asylum-seeker filmed the September incident, two others pulled her from the water, trying—and failing—to resuscitate her.

The wagons teem with trays of glazed ham, sweet potato casserole, coleslaw, and hundreds of festively decorated cookies. Others contain books and crayons for children, an assortment of candy canes and several hundred blinking necklaces fashioned after holiday lights.

“It’s not dignified to have to wait on somebody to feed you,” says Gaby Zavala, looking up from a barrage of texts to answer questions. Her desk, in a small office overlooking the camp of asylum seekers along the Rio Grande just past the Gateway International Bridge, is stacked with folders of receipts and paperwork brought to her by camp residents she employs as volunteers.

Her nickname is “Gab-Zilla,” and she wears the moniker proudly as she explains how she has had to fight with Mexican and U.S. officials for the rights of nearly 2,000 asylum-seekers living in a refugee camp in Matamoros.

Kidnapped Asylum Seeker Family, Remain in Mexico Policy Devastation.

A few days ago, we received word that the brother of a current guest of Casa Juan Diego, who had been forced to await his day in a U.S. Court in one of the refugee camps just across the border in Mexico, had been murdered. We don’t know the details yet, but a fellow migrant, also waiting in Mexico while the U.S. government delays and obstructs their asylum application, sent a photo of the brother’s body, I guess as a sort of formal proof-of-death to be shown to anyone that would witness.