Philanthropy responds to COVID-19 in the Borderlands.
Updated: September 10, 2020
COVID-19 relief funds across Borderlands grow to over US$120,700,000. Generosity knows no borders and that is certainly true in the U.S.-Mexico Border region. Community, public, and private foundations from San Diego to San Antonio on the U.S. side of the Border, and from Tijuana to Matamoros on the Mexico side of the Border have responded to the health pandemic with incredible speed and generosity. As of today, more than US$120 million has been secured to help families and communities in need. This is due to the incredible generosity of thousands of donors that believe in their community and want to help those in need. Funds have been disbursed to: help nonprofits deliver food to the hungry; provide economic relief to the unemployed; medical equipment to first responders; daycare for essential workers; grants to small businesses in jeopardy of closure; and many other needs identified by organizations along and across the region. Click here to see how foundations, corporations, community development programs, and local governments are collaborating in your community. You may also wish to consider a donation to the foundation nearest you.
Essential workers face delays at U.S.-Mexico border due to new CBP regulations. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have instituted new policies to discourage nonessential travel across the Mexico border. It has resulted in major delays for essential workers as well. The U.S. border with Mexico has been closed to nonessential travel since March 21 due to the coronavirus. But despite those restrictions, cross-border traffic has increased since then. So U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has started using new tactics to discourage nonessential travel, and that's making it harder for those who need to cross for essential work. KPBS reporter Tania Thorne explains. TANIA THORNE, BYLINE: Andres Roberto Moreno is a Mexican food service worker who crosses daily for his job in California. He says that for the last month, he's had to... (read more)
Coyotes are now smuggling migrants back home after they've given up on America. Travel restrictions around COVID-19 across Latin America mean some of those who want to get back home have to do it illegally. Hazel Lazo was lucky. She made it to the United States from El Salvador with legal permission. That meant she didn't have to risk the epic journey via land from Central America that some don't survive. But within months, because of the pandemic, she ran out of money and options in the U.S and decided to go home. And she needed a people smuggler to do it. "I thought about all the people who want to be there, in the U.S, and they risk their lives to get there. We risked ours again, but in reverse this time, to get back to El Salvador," she said. Regional border closures in response to the threat of the coronavirus have generated a new migration phenomenon: migrants from Central American nations such as Honduras and El Salvador having to... (read more)
Border workers do not risk being late and prefer to sleep at the Otay Mesa gatehouse. At the pedestrian crossing people sleep in line waiting for the border to open. People have been sleeping in their cars at the Otay border to wait for the port of entry to open; it started happening after the hours of service of the border port of entry were reduced. Dozens of workers sleep on the sidewalk or in their cars to be the first to cross the border once the Otay Mesa gate opens. This image has been a constant since the port of entry, which previously operated 24 hours, closed at night. They can't afford to be late, so they prefer to sleep uncomfortably before risking the unpredictable lines at San Ysidro. Since the beginning of the month, the Otay Mesa gatehouse operates from 6 a.m. at 10 p.m., in response to a decrease in the volume of border crossings stemming from travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, border traffic in the Tijuana-San Diego region is concentrated at the San Ysidro gate that... (read more)
Updated: August 27, 2020
Borderlands Foundations secure over US$89,920,000 in COVID-19 relief for families and communities. Foundations across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands have established COVID-19 response funds to help families and communities in need. From San Diego to San Antonio philanthropic organizations have nearly US$90 million to support relief programs where they are most needed. Click here to see how foundations, corporations, community development programs, and local governments are collaborating in your community. You may also wish to consider a donation to the foundation nearest you.
Health and financial risks for noncitizen immigrants due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on some groups of individuals, including lower income individuals and people of color. One group who faces risks and challenges associated with the pandemic is the nearly 22 million noncitizen immigrants living in the U.S. today. Non-citizen immigrants were already facing a range of challenges prior to the pandemic, including increased fear and uncertainty due to shifting immigration policy that was leading some to turn away from accessing programs and services. As virus hotspots have risen in the Southern and Western regions of the country, with reports of increases in towns along the U.S.-Mexico border, understanding the risks and challenges facing noncitizen immigrants is of increasing importance. This brief analyzes key characteristics of noncitizen immigrants to examine the health and economic risks they face amid the pandemic. It finds: Noncitizen immigrants are more likely to live in large households and in... (read more)
Longer wait times expected at US border under new COVID-19 protocols. There will be additional lane closures and customs inspections. The U.S. will slow down the flow of traffic at select ports of entry on the Southwest border to further limit the spread of novel coronavirus by travelers coming from Mexico, a Customs and Border Protection official confirmed on Saturday. Non-essential travel has been limited since March, but the new measures may increase wait times at ports of entry in San Diego, California; Tucson, Arizona; and El Paso and Laredo, Texas. Reuters first reported on the additional lane closures and customs inspections that will likely delay anyone traveling for non-essential reasons. "We're committed to continuing to facilitate cross border movement of essential travelers," CBP spokesperson Nate Peeters said. "These measures are only intended to address non-essential travel with the ultimate goal of the further inhibiting the cross-border spread of COVID-19." The restrictions on... (read more)
The world needs to reopen borders before it's too late. Even as they struggle to control the pandemic, governments should move quickly to reopen borders instead of giving in to xenophobia, nationalism, and illusions of autarky. Right now, it is hard to imagine a greater threat to the world's well-being than the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 23 million people have tested positive for the virus-likely just a fraction of the actual spread-and more than 800,000 have died. The pandemic has battered the global economy, with the World Bank predicting global GDP to drop by more than 5 percent this year, a true worldwide depression far worse than the downturn in 2008 and 2009. But COVID-19 is not the biggest threat the world faces. An even greater danger today is rising nationalism, which threatens to undermine international cooperation on vital issues including not only global public health but climate change and trade. And government responses to the pandemic, which have focused on border closings, travel bans, and reshoring the production of medical and other goods, are fueling the narrative that foreign people and foreign goods are a source of danger and... (read more)
Updated: August 13, 2020
Borderlands Foundations secure over US$60,300,000 in COVID-19 relief for families and communities. Foundations across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands have established COVID-19 response funds to help families and communities in need. From San Diego to San Antonio philanthropic organizations have raised over US$60 million to support relief programs where they are most needed. Click here to see how foundations, corporations, community development programs, and local governments are collaborating in your community. You may also wish to consider a donation to the foundation nearest you.
San Diego to offer coronavirus tests at US-Mexico border. Essential workers coming into the United States from Mexico and returning U.S. citizens will be offered the tests at the appointment-free, walk-up site. San Diego County plans to set up its first testing site for the coronavirus at one of the world's busiest pedestrian international border crossings, officials said Wednesday. County Supervisor Greg Cox said that the county will begin tests in about two weeks at the San Ysidro port of entry's PedWest crossing, which is exclusively pedestrian and connects Tijuana, Mexico to San Diego. An estimated 20,000 pedestrians enter the United States at the crossing daily, though that number has dropped with the pandemic and the shuttering of businesses. Essential workers coming into the United States from Mexico and returning U.S. citizens will be offered the tests at the appointment-free, walk-up site, Cox said. County officials expect to do... (read more)
Retirees living in Mexico worry about possible border plans aimed at COVID-19. Concerns continue to grow amid reports that President Trump may allow border officials to ban US citizens suspected of having coronavirus from re-entering the country. Five years ago, Les and Marilyn Widd retired and made a big move, buying an oceanfront home in Rosarito, Mexico. That dream retirement has suddenly been marred by worries about COVID-19 and a possible presidential action. According to published reports, President Trump is weighing rules to allow border officials to temporarily block an American citizen or legal permanent resident from entering, if there is reason to believe the person has coronavirus. "Absolutely upsetting, absolutely upsetting," said Les Widd, 70. Details about the possible plan are unknown, but Widd has heard enough. "It's violating your constitutional rights to receive treatment in your own country," said Widd. Widd says if either of them were to... (read more)
Ending 'asylum as we know it': Using pandemic to expel migrants, children at border. When a Salvadoran woman grabbed her 4-year-old daughter and fled their home country in February, the coronavirus wasn't yet a global pandemic. By the time they reached the U.S.-Mexico border a month later, that had changed. She crossed the Rio Grande, planning to ask for asylum. But Border Patrol agents took her and her daughter right back to Mexico, despite her pleas. "They told me they didn't care," the woman said in Spanish, asking us not to use her name, out of fear for her safety. "They didn't care what happened to my life. That I had to go - whether to Mexico, to El Salvador, to wherever I wanted, but I wasn't getting into the U.S." Since March, immigration officials have turned away tens of thousands of migrants like this woman and her daughter. They carried out more than 105,000 rapid expulsions through the end of July, under a public health order that... (read more)
Published: July 23, 2020
Vulnerable border community battles virus on 'a straight up trajectory.' In the Rio Grande Valley, poverty and chronic illness are aggravating the coronavirus outbreak. Ambulances stack up outside emergency rooms, where patients wait for beds. On a sweltering day last week near the southern tip of Texas, where high rates of poverty and chronic illness have heightened the ferocity of the coronavirus, Dr. Renzo Arauco Brown made his rounds, checking on patients who were facing severe complications from the virus and barely hanging on to life. The now-chaotic special infectious disease unit where he works has been clobbered with new admissions in recent weeks. Clinicians sweat under layers of protective gear and yell over constantly blaring alarms. Standing over a 63-year-old man whose lungs were taking in dangerous amounts of oxygen from a ventilator, Dr. Brown ordered medication to paralyze the man in hopes it would fix the problem. But it was one of many. The man had also suffered a severe stroke and blood clots because of the virus.
Asylum hearings at U.S.-Mexico border won't restart until COVID-19 criteria met; longer wait time likely. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department issued on Friday evening new guidance to resume court hearings for migrants who seek asylum in the United States but who are sent to Mexico to wait. The criteria, amid the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic, is likely to result in longer wait times in Mexico for migrants as both countries continue to see the uncontrolled spread of the new coronavirus. Hearings were originally scheduled to resume on Monday for asylum seekers sent to Mexico under a policy called the Migrant Protection Protocols, but more informally known as "Remain in Mexico." Since rolling out the program in January 2019, the U.S. government has sent back more than 60,000 migrants. The new criteria does away with set dates, and instead relies on a series of conditions that must be met before court hearings resume. Those conditions are almost entirely dependent on states on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border gaining control of... (read more)
'This is a war': the coronavirus disaster in California's hardest-hit - and poorest - county. About 17 patients are airlifted out of Imperial county every day, as the virus takes a devastating toll on Latino residents. In southern California's Imperial county, the chuff-chuff of spinning helicopter blades has become a familiar noise. It's the sound of coronavirus patients being airlifted out - 15 to 17 a day, on average. This remote region along the US-Mexico border is under siege from Covid-19, and hospitals are stretched to the brink. Imperial county, population 181,000, is experiencing California's worst outbreak, according to several public health metrics. Over the last 14 days, the county's infection rate was more than 588 per 100,000 people - by far the highest in the state. As of Friday, the county had recorded 7,759 coronavirus cases and 132 fatalities. Adolphe Edward, the CEO for El Centro regional medical center, one of only two hospitals in the county, is reminded of medical operations he has overseen in Turkey, Oman and United Arab Emirates. More than 500 patients have already been... (read more)
How US immigration officials are spreading the coronavirus. At least one transfer led to a super-spreading event, when the ICE moved 74 detainees, more than half of which later tested positive for Covid-19; three weeks later, that had jumped to 315. Public health specialists have for months warned the US government that shuffling detainees among immigration detention centres will expose people to Covid-19 and help spread the disease. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has continued the practice, saying it is taking all necessary precautions. It turns out the health specialists were right, according to a review of court records and ICE data. The analysis of immigration court data identified 268 transfers of detainees between detention centres in April, May and June, after hundreds in ICE custody had already tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Half of the transfers identified involved detainees who were either moved from centres with Covid-19 cases to centres with no known cases, or from... (read more)
Updated:: July 9, 2020
Borderland Foundations secure over US$58 million to support families and communities impacted by COVID 19. Since our last newsletter, community foundations from San Diego to San Antonio have secured an additional US$11 million dollars to support COVID 19 relief programs. The generous spirit of Individual donors, small businesses, large corporations, donor advised funds, as well as local, regional, and state governments has responded forcefully to this pandemic. As of today, US$58 million dollars has been donated to support families, communities, nonprofit organizations, small businesses, and more. Click on the links below to see how these BPP member agencies are responding locally to help those most in need. Want to make a contribution? Select the organization nearest you and support their efforts. Need help for your nonprofit organization? Contact the foundation in your area to see how you may qualify for a grant or nonprofit loan.
In California, The San Diego Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, Alliance Healthcare Foundation, and United Way of San Diego County joined forces to support families in need and the local nonprofit sector with donations from local partners and donors to create the San Diego COVID-19 Community Response Fund. The International Community Foundation has established a new fund to support outreach activities in Mexico. San Diego Grantmakers is working with the City of San Diego to design and implement the City's Small Business Relief and Support Grant Program with a unique equity lens. The US-Mexico Border Philanthropy Partnership is able to assist you with fiscal agency support and can receive and distribute charitable donations on your behalf, as well as support in-kind gifts to the other side of the border.
In Arizona, the Arizona Community Foundation and their affiliate network established an emergency fund to support nonprofits responding to the Coronavirus and are raising and disbursing funds across the State. They also launched a new fund to support Latino-owned businesses. The Community Foundation for Southern Arizona crafted a community resource guide that is updated daily and has opened a new fund to provide grants and loans to support nonprofit organizations serving the local community.
In New Mexico, the Santa Fe Community Foundation launched the COVID-19 Response Fund to address critical gaps in food security and income during this unprecedented time. The Con Alma Health Foundation continues to be engaged and is providing key information resources as well as health related grants to agencies across the State. The Community Foundation for Southern New Mexico has opened an emergency fund to support nonprofits.
In Texas, the El Paso Community Foundation created the Coronavirus Fund to help people, and nonprofits in the local community deal with the financial pressures brought on by the pandemic. El Paso Community Foundation, FECHAC, and Desarrollo Económico also recently partnered on the UNIDOS Fund to secure additional PPE for hospital workers in Cd. Juarez. The Paso del Norte Health Foundation created the El Paso COVID-19 information hub, and the Paso del Norte Community Foundation is partnering with United Way of El Paso to support the El Paso COVID -19 Response Fund to support nonprofit organizations serving the most vulnerable in the community including the homeless and elderly. The San Antonio Area Foundation, United Way of San Antonio and Bexar Counties, and multiple partners have unveiled the COVID-19 Response Fund to support local nonprofits serving the economically vulnerable.
Please consider supporting one of these local funds established to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Your gift joins thousands of others working to build a safe and resilient community in the Borderlands.
In California, The San Diego Foundation, San Diego Gas & Electric, Alliance Healthcare Foundation, and United Way of San Diego County joined forces to support families in need and the local nonprofit sector with donations from local partners and donors to create the San Diego COVID-19 Community Response Fund. The International Community Foundation has established a new fund to support outreach activities in Mexico. San Diego Grantmakers is working with the City of San Diego to design and implement the City's Small Business Relief and Support Grant Program with a unique equity lens. The US-Mexico Border Philanthropy Partnership is able to assist you with fiscal agency support and can receive and distribute charitable donations on your behalf, as well as support in-kind gifts to the other side of the border.
In Arizona, the Arizona Community Foundation and their affiliate network established an emergency fund to support nonprofits responding to the Coronavirus and are raising and disbursing funds across the State. They also launched a new fund to support Latino-owned businesses. The Community Foundation for Southern Arizona crafted a community resource guide that is updated daily and has opened a new fund to provide grants and loans to support nonprofit organizations serving the local community.
In New Mexico, the Santa Fe Community Foundation launched the COVID-19 Response Fund to address critical gaps in food security and income during this unprecedented time. The Con Alma Health Foundation continues to be engaged and is providing key information resources as well as health related grants to agencies across the State. The Community Foundation for Southern New Mexico has opened an emergency fund to support nonprofits.
In Texas, the El Paso Community Foundation created the Coronavirus Fund to help people, and nonprofits in the local community deal with the financial pressures brought on by the pandemic. El Paso Community Foundation, FECHAC, and Desarrollo Económico also recently partnered on the UNIDOS Fund to secure additional PPE for hospital workers in Cd. Juarez. The Paso del Norte Health Foundation created the El Paso COVID-19 information hub, and the Paso del Norte Community Foundation is partnering with United Way of El Paso to support the El Paso COVID -19 Response Fund to support nonprofit organizations serving the most vulnerable in the community including the homeless and elderly. The San Antonio Area Foundation, United Way of San Antonio and Bexar Counties, and multiple partners have unveiled the COVID-19 Response Fund to support local nonprofits serving the economically vulnerable.
Please consider supporting one of these local funds established to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Your gift joins thousands of others working to build a safe and resilient community in the Borderlands.
Published: July 9, 2020
Special Report: As cases surge, California struggles to slow COVID-19 in Latino communities. Gov. Gavin Newsom calls them the unsung heroes of the California economy in dangerous times. They are the workers, many of them Latino, who can't afford to shelter in place. They harvest crops, work shoulder to shoulder in factories, prep food in restaurant kitchens and put roofs on houses. Yet until recently, few local public health officers and experts in California focused on another fact about that group: Latinos of working age are getting sick and dying from the coronavirus in disproportionately high numbers. Now, the alarm bell has sounded. After virus testing sites branched out to more diverse communities in recent weeks, the grim severity of the situation is clear. "We have failed our under-served communities," said David Lubarsky, chief executive officer for UC Davis Health, speaking of the overall response to date to the pandemic. UC Davis partnered with Sacramento County and community groups such as La Familia on recent testing in more neighborhoods of color that... (read more)
Between borders. From a doctor stranded in Ciudad Juárez to a shelter closed after an outbreak, COVID-19 is hitting hard along the Texas-Mexico border. Leer en español. This is Part 1 of COVID-19 in the Immigration Pipeline-a series supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, published by the Texas Observer in collaboration with the Border Center for Journalists and Bloggers. When news of the pandemic arrived, D.T. found herself locked in a cell on the U.S. side of the Paso del Norte bridge more than 1,700 miles from home, pregnant and desperate. The 26-year-old had fled Havana, Cuba in July 2019 to seek asylum after being labeled a dissident and beaten by police. Inside the cell, she began suffering abdominal pains. Perhaps they came from injuries suffered in the most violent of two attacks she'd endured during long months waiting in Ciudad Juárez for her asylum claim to be considered by a U.S. immigration judge. Two other pregnant women shared her cell in March-one looked like she could give birth any minute. D.T., a physician as well as an asylum-seeker, examined their bulging bellies and worried: "Can you imagine... (read more)
People with coronavirus are crossing the US-Mexico border for medical care. Chris Van Gorder says he's seeing a telling trend in the hospitals he runs. Coronavirus patients are showing up in emergency rooms after calling 911 from the US-Mexico border. "They'll literally come to the border and call an ambulance," says Van Gorder, president and CEO of Scripps Health, a hospital system in southern California. The rise in ambulance traffic from the border, which several officials described to CNN, is a symptom of the pandemic's spread in the region -- and a sign of the many connections between communities in both countries. "There just is not a wall for viruses at the border," says Josiah Heyman, director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. "The wall is an illusion, because the two sides are really woven together." An increase in cross-border coronavirus cases, which... (read more)
Published: June 25, 2020
What's behind a COVID-19 spike in Imperial County. In late March, Imperial County had just nine confirmed cases of COVID-19, and the head of the largest hospital there thought his community had dodged a bullet. But Dr. Adolphe Edward soon realized his assessment was premature. "All of a sudden, we had 65 patients with COVID," Edward recounted during a recent interview, "which was over 70 percent of my hospital admissions." Today, the rural county on the U.S.-Mexico border with 180,000 residents has the highest coronavirus infection rate per capita of any California county. As of June 16, the county's public health department reported that 4,389 people had tested positive, and 52 people had died with the virus. The surge in cases is partly due to the county's location right on the international boundary, health officials say. Edward's hospital, the 150-bed El Centro Regional Medical Center, is just a half-hour drive north of Mexicali, a city with over a million residents in Baja California that has become... (read more)
In Ciudad Juárez, a new 'filter hotel' offers migrants a safe space to quarantine. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Hotel Flamingo in Ciudad Juarez has been filling up with guests. When they arrive, they have to go through a thorough disinfection process. First, they step inside a tray filled with diluted bleach, to clean off the soles of their shoes. Then it's on to a handwashing station, where they're instructed to scrub with a generous amount of soap and follow up with a big squirt of hand sanitizer. Finally, they receive a fresh face mask, and the hotel coordinator sprays their shoes with an alcohol mixture. These guests aren't tourists on vacation. They're people who tried to cross into the U.S. but, for a variety of reasons, have been sent back to this border city and need a safe place to stay. Migrant shelters, which are trying to control the spread of COVID-19, can't immediately take them in. So Hotel Flamingo has been temporarily converted into a "filter hotel" - a space where they can quarantine for 14 days before transferring to a... (read more)
Coronavirus cases surge in Arizona's border counties. Arizona is seeing more COVID-19 cases statewide, but two small counties along the US-Mexico border are seeing particularly troubling trends. In the last month, Santa Cruz county has reported over 1,500 new cases and Yuma County has reported more than 3,000. That's a stark change from numbers those areas have seen in the past - Santa Cruz County had just 69 cases when Gov. Ducey lifted the stay at home order on May 15. Yuma County had 310. Gary Nabhan, an agricultural ecologist and a research social scientist at the University of Arizona, said these are agricultural hubs for the state and the country. Produce is harvested in farmland near Yuma and it's packed and delivered through the border in Nogales. Nabhan said both areas are staffed with essential workers who don't have the chance to stay home when sick. "Whether they're packing the produce in Nogales or... (read more)
Published: June 11, 2020
Border-crossers turn to bikes as lines stretch for hours. Between work in Nogales, Ariz. and family in Nogales, Sonora, Diego Baldenegro finds himself crossing the local border every three or four days. Until about a month ago, that meant getting into his car and crossing through the vehicle lanes at the local ports of entry. "Up until then, in the car it wasn't that bad," he said. "It was like an hour, an hour and a half. Now it's three to four hours, five (in the vehicle lanes), and so your car overheats." On Monday morning, Baldenegro rolled out of the DeConcini Port of Entry on a different set of wheels: a Mongoose mountain bike. "On the bike, it makes (crossing the border) a little easier," he said. Baldenegro is one of a growing number of local residents turning to two-wheeled transit as lines to cross the border on foot or in personal vehicles stretch for hours. Riders who spoke to the NI said that, in recent days, a separate bike line was forming to go through the downtown Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers screening... (read more)
Coronavirus on the border: California hospitals overwhelmed by patients from Mexico. When Manuel Ochoa started feeling sick - his body sore, his breathing restricted - he drove from his mother's home in Mexicali, Mexico, to the U.S. border. The 65-year-old retiree parked his car at the international bridge and tried to drag himself to the country where he has permanent residency, and where his health insurance is valid. Just before he approached the Border Patrol checkpoint, he collapsed in the sun. That's when U.S. immigration officials made a call that has become increasingly common during the coronavirus outbreak: for an ambulance to transport a U.S. citizen or resident from the Mexican border to the nearest American hospital. As Mexico's health-care system has strained under the coronavirus, small community hospitals in Southern California, some of the poorest in the state, have been flooded with Americans who have fallen ill and crossed the border. They are retirees and dual citizens, American... (read more)
Mexican families struggle to send remains of virus victims back home. When Crescencio Flores died of coronavirus in New York, his parents back in Mexico asked for one thing: that their son be sent home for burial. The 56-year-old construction worker had been in the United States for 20 years, regularly sending money to his parents but never going home. Since he died in April, Flores' brother has been working with American and Mexican authorities to have the body transported to the town of Huehuepiaxtla in the state of Puebla. So far, his efforts have been in vain. His brother's embalmed remains are still in a U.S. funeral home. "I am trying to do this because my parents, 85 and 87 years old, live there," Francisco Flores said. "They are rooted in their customs. They want a Christian burial for the remains of their son." The family's situation is common. More than a thousand Mexican immigrants have died of the virus in the U.S., according to the Mexican government, and many... (read more)
Published: May 27, 2020
COVID's controversial "washing tunnels" for those crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Authorities in the Mexican city of Nogales, which borders Arizona, put those entering the country through a curious "disinfectant tunnel" to prevent the spread of COVID-19. That way, everyone who arrives in Nogales, Sonora, from the international "Mariposas" checkpoint -including pedestrians- must go through these tunnels where they are sprayed with a disinfectant that keeps the body clean and free of the virus for 24 hours, according to a statement from the municipality of Nogales. Health authorities in the region, who have announced that they will install more of these anti-COVID corridors at local border checkpoints, believe that most of the cases of coronavirus recorded in Nogales have been from people crossing from Arizona. There is sufficient data that argues the neighboring state's more than 13,000 confirmed infections could've helped with Sonora's 700, and 34 dead. However, there are those who... (read more)
Coronavirus cases jump along California-Mexico border.
The southernmost counties in California are witnessing an influx in cases. A Southern California county that shares a border with Mexico is seeing a spike in coronavirus cases. The Associated Press (AP) reports that El Centro, a farming community in Mexicali - a town in Mexico on the U.S.-Mexico border - is seeing a rise in coronavirus-related hospitalizations. Some believe this uptick stems from American citizens who live in Mexico coming to the U.S. for care. El Centro Regional Medical Center, located in the Imperial Valley and El Centro metro region, reportedly admitted 14 infected patients on Monday evening, pushing its coronavirus caseload to 65. The hospital temporarily stopped accepting COVID-19 patients due to the surge. As of May 21, the hospital is down to 52 coronavirus patients, per its Facebook page. Nearby Pioneer Memorial Hospital saw a similar... (read more)
U.S. returned at least 1,000 unaccompanied migrant children despite corona risks.
The United States has returned at least 1,000 unaccompanied migrant children to Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras since early March despite risks of violence and discrimination that have worsened because of the coronavirus pandemic, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF said on Thursday. Mexico has also returned at least 447 migrant children to Guatemala and Honduras over the same period, UNICEF said. It warned that children returned by the United States and Mexico faced added protection risks because of the perception they are infected with the coronavirus. "COVID-19 is making a bad situation even worse. Discrimination and attacks are now added to existing threats like gang violence that drove these children to leave in the first place," UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said. "This means many returned children are now... (read more)
Published: May 13, 2020
San Diego to donate face shields to Tijuana as border command group works to address COVID-19.
San Diego, Tijuana cross-border cooperation proves strong during coronavirus pandemic. Proving the strength of the cross-border relationship between San Diego and Tijuana, today San Diego Mayor Kevin L. Faulconer will be joined by Tijuana Mayor Arturo González Cruz to announce the donation of 1,000 3D-printed face shields from the City of San Diego to the City of Tijuana for use in public hospitals. Mayor Faulconer will also detail a new regional working group that tracks and monitors the pandemic in San Diego and Baja California. "COVID-19 knows no boundaries, so our border region is working together to monitor the situation in Baja and preparing for healthcare impacts in the San Diego region should they arise," Mayor Faulconer said. "San Diego and Tijuana are in this... (read more)
Americans waiting out coronavirus in Canadian and Mexican border cities reflect on time away.
Citizens say they feel more comfortable outside U.S. They are Americans from two different worlds, but when the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. hard, they decided to take the same step -- riding it out across the border. Cities such as Toronto and Vancouver in Canada and Puerto Peñasco in Mexico are some of the places that Americans are taking shelter in during the crisis, and many say they have few regrets. While they miss their family and friends back home, the ex-pats say they feel more comfortable in their current locations, since the U.S. leads the world in cases and deaths by a large margin. Canada has some 67,000 cases and less than 5,000 deaths and Mexico 29,000 cases and less than 3,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. New York state alone has more cases and deaths than both countries combined (330,000 cases and 21,000 deaths). "It's a strange feeling not being able to see your parents, but I know that we're... (read more)
U.S. suspends protections for migrant kids at border, expelling hundreds amid pandemic.
María does not know what to do. Her request for U.S. asylum was denied. Her authorization to be in Mexico, contingent on having an ongoing U.S. immigration case, has expired. And now, the U.S. has sent her 10-year-old son alone to Honduras, where she fled an abusive partner who threatened to kill her if she returns. After losing their asylum case under the Remain-in-Mexico policy, which has granted protection to just 1.1% of the migrants who have completed their proceedings under the program, María allowed Jesús, her young son, to cross the border alone to turn himself over to U.S. officials, thinking he would be allowed to reunite with family in Texas and seek refuge in the U.S. under long-standing policies for unaccompanied migrant minors. Instead, Jesús was placed on a... (read more)
Border Report: 'Tijuana is facing a different kind of crisis'.
The border is taking a leading role in the region's conversations about how to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Not only are South Bay ZIP codes showing a higher number of cases, but a far greater share of coronavirus tests administered to patients there are coming back positive. Tijuana has been hit hard by COVID-19. The city has the some of the highest numbers of coronavirus-related deaths per capita in Mexico at 173. As of Sunday, Baja California had a total of 1,660 confirmed cases. An analysis by the magazine Zeta found that the state's working class has been hit particularly hard. Dozens of coronavirus victims are being buried in an already-packed graveyard in Tijuana, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. County officials and hospital leaders have started sounding the alarm. They've asked the U.S. government for assistance to help Mexico respond to the crisis, and help San Diego prevent and... (read more)
The COVID-19 effect on U.S.-Mexico border cities.
What were once bustling centers of activity are ghost towns with rising case counts. About a month ago was one of the most popular weeks for crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Semana Santa, the week that precedes Easter is a time usually reserved for a trip to the Mexican coastline for many on either side of the border. The travel also provides a welcome flush of cash for those in the vital tourism industry of the region, making sure they too, eat well for Easter Sunday.But this year, with coronavirus grinding travel to a standstill, the reality was much less festive. A major economic hit. An hour from the Arizona-Mexico border, in the resort town of Puerto Peñasco, Maria Eugenia Zacatelco Montiel would normally have had to schedule extra boat tours during Holy Week. Instead, she had to lay off all but 10 of her 24 staff members from her... (read more)
Published: April 30, 2020
Texas farmworkers struggle without government aid and coronavirus protection.
In the predawn light, Francisco Garcia kisses his two daughters and whispers that he'll be back after work. He makes his living harvesting onions near the South Texas town of Mercedes, a few miles from the Mexican border. "For an indocumentado like me, this is how we make a living. For us, there is no coronavirus. My kids and my wife depend on what I bring in every day and that's it," said Garcia, 40. "Why? Because we don't have benefits, nobody's helping us." More than half of the 2.5 million farmworkers in the U.S. are undocumented. But while their presence is considered illegal, their work amid the coronavirus pandemic is far from that - the Department of Homeland Security has deemed farm work an "essential" service. Farmworkers and their advocates are concerned about their working conditions, comparing them to... (read more)
"Exporting the virus": Migrants deported by U.S. make up 20% of Guatemala's coronavirus cases.
When it unveiled an unprecedented order last month to swiftly expel virtually all unauthorized migrants from the U.S. southern border, the Trump administration said potentially infected foreigners could spread the coronavirus in the U.S., prompt outbreaks in immigration jails and strain public health resources along border communities. But in a paradoxical twist, Guatemala, the largest source of migration to the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years, fears the U.S. is exporting the virus there through deportation flights. At least 99 migrants recently deported to Guatemala by the U.S. have tested positive for coronavirus as of Sunday, according to the nation's public health ministry. Deportees from the U.S. make up nearly 20% of the... (read more)
Some border area U.S. citizens will not be getting stimulus checks.
Tom Kobylecky is a truck driver from Chicago. He lives in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, which has been his home for over ten years. Indeed that ten-year period is in itself very significant because he has lived just across the border with his entire family for ten years on the advice of his immigration attorney. After living in Reynosa for ten years, the Kobylecky family were beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel. His Mexican wife was waiting for an appointment at the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez to apply for legal residency. Then along came the COVID-19 pandemic, and a series of administrative rulings by the Trump administration that have put dark clouds on the horizon. The most recent, a ruling that excludes U.S. citizens married to immigrants without a social security number to receive stimulus checks. "I really haven't been affected too much by COVID-19 other than having to spend... (read more)
Published: April 16, 2020
Coronavirus on the border: Why Mexico has so few cases compared with the U.S.
The U.S.-Mexico border has long been a region of contrasts. But people in both countries are puzzling over the latest one: The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus on the Mexican side is just a small fraction of the U.S. count. On Sunday, confirmed cases in California topped 6,200, compared with just 23 in Baja California. Arizona had 919 cases, dwarfing the 14 in neighboring Sonora. New Mexico reported 237 cases; in Chihuahua state, there were six. The U.S.-Mexico border is the busiest in the world, with an estimated 1 million legal crossings per day. The neighbors' economies are intertwined. So why is there such a big difference in cases? The disparity reflects, in part, a time lag. Mexico did not report its first case until Feb. 27 - a month after the virus was detected in the United States. To date, the country has counted 993 cases, less than 1 percent of the U.S. total. But Mexico is also pursuing an unorthodox strategy. It is relying less on tests, and more on... (read more)
Scenes from the U.S.-Mexico border during coronavirus pandemic.
Members of an asylum-seeker family remain in a tent at the Juventud 2000 migrant shelter in Tijuana, Baja California State, Mexico, on April 3, 2020 during the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic. Thousands of migrants overcrowding shelters or begging in the streets in Mexican cities along the US border are living in fear as the novel coronavirus spreads in the population and screening interviews for asylum seekers are being suspended. (Photo by Guillermo ARIAS / AFP). See complete gallery here.
Border families express concern over border COVID-19 restrictions.
Families who are divided by the border tell KTSM they are growing concerned with the spread of COVID-19 after restrictions were put in place two weeks ago at border crossings for essential travel only. "It's all too common, we have a lot of families who have been separated by our immigration laws, where you have family members who have been deported and are living on the Mexican side," said Immigration Lawyer Iliana Holguin. She explained tough situations are being made worse. "It's hard enough being separated from your family members like that during normal times and it's even more difficult when we're talking about the situation that we're in right now," Holguin said. Patricia Miramontes told KTSM it's affecting her now. Two years ago Miramontes husband was deported, now she lives in El Paso while her husband and daughter live in Juárez. "I go to Juarez every weekend, I don't ever miss," said Miramontes. She explained she's lucky she... (read more)
Published on: March 26, 2020
Coronavirus border travel restrictions start to impact daily life.
Mexican residents with legal visas began to be turned away from the U.S. Saturday morning. Martin Arce, a Tijuana factory worker, spent the past week manufacturing respirators that are being shipped throughout the U.S. to fight to coronavirus pandemic. Work was so hectic, that Arce didn't have time to pay his phone bill. Because unlimited plans are cheaper in San Diego than they are in Tijuana, Arce has a plan from Cricket Wireless. And because his phone is now shut off and he doesn't have a computer, Arce has to cross the border to pay his bill in person. But when he tried to cross through the San Ysidro Port of Entry Saturday morning, Arce was turned away because of new restrictions prohibiting "non-essential" cross-border travel. The restrictions, announced Friday by President Donald Trump, went into effect just after midnight Eastern time Saturday - 9 p.m. Friday here. The goal is to stem the spread of the coronavirus by limiting cross-border travel while still protecting trade and commerce. A similar deal is... (read more)
South Texas COVID-19 cases spike on border with Mexico.
Fears the virus will infect a Mexican border tent encampment where thousands of asylum-seekers live. The number of cases of COVID-19 in two South Texas border counties dramatically spiked on Saturday night totaling five cases with the announcement of the first confirmed case in Hidalgo County and several in Cameron County, health officials said. Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez on Saturday night announced that a coronavirus case was confirmed in McAllen, which is the largest city in the border county. That triggered the county to order the Hidalgo County Division of Emergency Management to go into a Level 1 Operational status, the county's highest. "We knew this day was coming and we are prepared," Cortez said in a statement. "This is a highly contagious disease and residents should not be surprised - or alarmed - that others in Hidalgo County will likely contract the virus." The news..(read more)
A closed border, dashed hopes and a looming disaster.
The United States, citing the coronavirus, is shutting off access for anyone trying to claim asylum from the Mexican border. Tania Bonilla arrived in this Mexican border city on Wednesday determined to apply for asylum in the United States. With her 1-year-old in tow, she had defied the odds - evading a death sentence by a Honduran gang at home, she said, as well as deportation by the Mexican authorities at the southern border and kidnapping by smugglers en route. But now, in eyeshot of an international bridge connecting the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez to the United States, a new and even more serious obstacle presented itself: the coronavirus. In response to its rapid spread, which has claimed about 13,000 lives worldwide, the United States government announced on Friday that in addition to closing the Mexican border to nonessential traffic, it would shut off access for anyone trying to claim asylum from the border. In practice, the United States will deport anyone caught crossing between official ports of entry, including.. (read more)
