Written by Julia López, PhD, MPH, LCSW, and Riley Novak
In March, I was invited to join Advocacy and Civic Engagement staff from the Center for Social Action at Saint Louis University, along with 10 students, to visit the U.S.-Mexico border. During this visit, I connected with various humanitarian aid organizations in Ambos Nogales, Douglas, and Agua Prieta, which included providing support through a local shelter, accompanying migrants, and gaining additional understanding of the current dynamics at the border.
The political origins of the U.S.-Mexico border can be traced to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the Mexican American War (known in Mexico as la intervención estadounidense en México [The U.S. intervention in Mexico]) and forcibly transferred a vast portion of Mexican territory into U.S. possession. This territory ranged from California to Texas and even up into parts of Wyoming and Oklahoma. Today, when many Americans think of the southern border, they imagine towering metal walls, Border Patrol agents, and barbed wire; in fact, some of this infrastructure is as recent as the 1990s.
During the past thirty years, the southern border has undergone a drastic physical change, starting with President Clinton’s series of operations (“Hold the Line,” “Gatekeeper,” and “Safeguard”) that upgraded military equipment, deployed significantly more border patrol agents, and installed new watchtowers and sensors. Infrastructural development continued into the early 2000s, and a combined total of 654 miles of wall were constructed under the Bush and Obama administrations. President Trump’s first administration oversaw the construction of 458 miles of wall, the majority of which was replacing old pedestrian fences with 30 feet-tall steel walls.
With all the changes in the southwestern U.S., Americans tend to pay little attention to the Mexican side of the border. What most don’t know is that Mexican border cities are also directly impacted by U.S. immigration policies, and I believe they deserve our most urgent focus on human rights and migration work. During my trip, I observed that the Mexican side of the border in Nogales, Sonora, was eerily quiet. When I visited in the past, the shelter was bustling with activity and served as a key location for individuals being deported from the U.S. however, recent changes in Mexican government policies, like the initiative called ‘Mexico Te Abraza,’ have shifted the process, and individuals are now being managed through government-facilitated shelters specifically designed for Mexican nationals. There seems to be a lack of coordination and transparency with local organizations.
Individuals of other nationalities, usually traveling from the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) or South America, do not qualify for the initiative and are being taken to Mexico’s southernmost states. This leaves those migrants with very little access to work or support systems. I am extremely concerned about the limited resources and support, the kind of danger that leaves people that are already vulnerable and have experienced unimaginable violence and trauma. The week I spent in Nogales, Sonora, reaffirmed that there is an immediate need to implement measures that truly consider the well-being, security, and safety of all those migrating through Mexico.