Under the government’s widely-condemned “Remain in Mexico” policy, formally known as the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been forced to wait in Mexican border towns that the State Department explicitly warns American citizens not to travel to.

Published by The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), the mock State Department video seeks to question how the U.S. can continue to warn Americans to stay away from places like the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, for example, while forcing thousands of vulnerable asylum seekers, including many children, to wait for months in the same region.

Echoing the State Department’s real-life advisory for Tamaulipas, the video’s narration warns that the region has a level 4 “do not travel” advisory with “violent crime such as murder, armed robbery, car-jacking, kidnapping, extortion and sexual assault” common in border towns like Matamoros.

Graphic scenes showing the aftermath of violent attacks in the state play before suddenly switching to footage of asylum seekers lined up to plead their cases outside a U.S. port of entry.

“However, if you applied for asylum in the United States and were sent back to ‘Remain in Mexico’ while waiting for your case to be processed Matamoros is just the place for you,” the video says.

“In fact, you can stay for a really, really long time under our exciting new policy: The Migrant Protection protocols,” it adds, accompanied by a suddenly upbeat soundtrack.

“Spend your days in a relaxing ‘urban camping’ setting enjoying a sense of communal living in our state of the art facilities. Watch your children play freely at the camp’s various kid friendly amenities and climbing structures,” it says, showing children climbing a security turnstile.

In an interview with Newsweek, RAICES Video Director Natasha Pizzey said the mock State Department video was created to highlight the “hypocrisy and double standard” that the U.S. has when it comes to considering the safety and security of American citizens and those seeking refuge within the country.

“We want to point out the U.S. is turning around and saying a completely different standard of safety is acceptable for some of the most vulnerable people of the planet,” she said.

Noting that the immigration policy, which has seen more than 47,000 asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico while their immigration cases play out in the U.S., has been in place for nearly a year now, Pizzey said the lack of public outrage over the policy continues to astound her.

“We think it’s vital that people understand what the government is doing and its cruelty,” she said. “It hasn’t generated the outrage we feel it merits.”

Part of that, Pizzey said, could be due to a lack of awareness and understanding about how the policy came into being, who it applies to and what dangers it exposes asylum seekers to.

Many people appear to believe that the Remain in Mexico policy only applies to asylum seekers who try to cross into the U.S. outside of designated ports of entry, Pizzey said. That is not the case, she sought to make clear.

Even if it were, she emphasised the U.S. should not be forcing asylum seekers to wait in areas with a level 4 travel advisory.

In the months that have passed since the controversial policy came into effect, the risks of forcing thousands of people to live in border towns known for high rates of crime and violence have quickly become realities.

In a recent report, Human Rights First warned that it had identified at least 636 publicly reported cases of “rape, torture, kidnapping and other violent assaults against asylum seekers and migrants forced to return to Mexico by the Trump administration.” Among those cases were at least 138 in which children were reported to have been kidnapped or nearly kidnapped while in Mexico under the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols.

Just last month, a father who had made the arduous journey to the U.S. with his wife and two young children from El Salvador was brutally killed after being forced to wait in Tijuana while their asylum cases were processed.

The family had been waiting there for months only to be sent back again after expressing fears for their safety in the border town during an immigration hearing on September 11, immigration attorney Richard Sterger told Newsweek.

The father’s death “was a tragic case” but “we knew this was going to happen,” Sterger said.

For both Sterger and Pizzey, the same metaphor came to mind when trying to encapsulate the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico policy: “It’s leading lambs to slaughter.”

Newsweek has contacted the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for comment for this article.