A D&S Special Report

pandemic

A Tale of Twin Cities: How Politics and the Pandemic Are Affecting Binational Life at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Upon entering El Paso from the El Norte border crossing, people pass under a welcome sign over El Paso Street, a popular shopping area. (Photo by Andrea Gabor)

By Melissa Bacian and Sophia Carnabuci

For Willivaldo Delgadillo, a writer and professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, growing up as binational citizen in the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez region never felt like he was setting foot in another country.

“I always think of certain areas of El Paso not as El Paso but as ‘North Juarez.’ And of course, Juarez is really influenced by El Paso and the United States,” said Delgadillo, 59, who is a U.S. citizen and currently lives in Juarez. “If you cross the bridge, just because it’s another country, you have to show your passport and sometimes there are very long lines to cross, but if you just go, in either direction, it still feels like it’s part of the same city.”

The symbiotic relationship between El Paso and Juarez is one that runs through many Mexican-Americans like Delgadillo.

“(It’s) sort of hard to understand if you’re not from the border where people literally have a piece of the family in each country, and not that they’re communicating to each other through WhatsApp or sending packages on Christmas, or whatever, but literally visiting every weekend,” said Josiah Heyman, an anthropology professor at UTEP who studies border issues.

But the ties have been tested in recent years with the surge of Central American migrants and refugees who have passed through the two cities, the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration and the mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart. In mid-March, The Trump administration shut down all nonessential crossings on the southern and northern borders, including shoppers, visitors, tourists and migrants, in an attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus, further scrambling the life of binationals in the El Pass-Juarez region.

A mural depicting the twin-city relationship between El Paso and Juarez in El Paso’s El Segundo neighborhood, just steps from the Paso del Norte bridge connecting the two cities. (Photo by Vera Haller)

With no confirmation on the re-opening of the U.S.-Mexico border, the twin cities are temporarily separated, leaving the future of a long-standing binational culture uncertain.

Together, the two cities form a vibrant urban center spanning the border of western Texas and Mexico. Juarez’s population is more than 1.3 million, making it the eighth largest in Mexico, according to the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Research and Evaluation at UTEP. El Paso has a population of almost 840,000 residents, according to the U.S Census Bureau.

El Paso is located far from other large metropolitan areas – about a nine-hour drive from Dallas and eight hours from San Antonio, making its connection to Juarez even more important.

Before the coronavirus, crossing the border was a part of daily life for many. In 2019, more than 300,000 individuals legally crossed the El Paso Station, one of the sectors linking El Paso and Juarez, according to the Bureau of Transportation.

Friar Stephen Pitts, the religious education director at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in El Paso, described the unique relationship Juarez and El Paso have with one another. “It’s incredible to live in a bilingual place. People here want their kids to speak Spanish. It’s part of their culture they want to carry on,” he said. “People come from across the city to do their first communion or confirmation here because it’s a part of their heritage.”

Juarez and El Paso have a long and storied history dating back to the 1500s when Spanish explorers came across the two mountain ranges rising out of the desert with a deep chasm in between. They named the site El Paso del Norte (the Pass of the North: Modern day Juarez, El Paso and Chihuahua.)

In 1682, five settlements were founded south of the river – El Paso del Norte, San Lorenzo, Senecu, Ysleta and Socorro. The area soon became a trade center for agriculture and eventually became the region we know as Juarez.

But the cross-border nature of the two cities has long posed challenges as well.

Many in the region have been affected by violence in Juarez dating back to the late 1980s and drug trafficking organized by a group called the Juarez Cartel, run by Vincente Carrillo Fuentes. In the early 2000s, rival gang warfare between the Sinola and the Juarez Cartel caused an increase in crime in the city of Juarez. Though drug trafficking has not disappeared, there has been a notable decrease. This in turn, has helped tamp down other crimes; in 2010, 3,500 homicides were reported, while in 2014, it had dropped down to roughly 430 homicides.

Then in 2019, the surge of Central American migrants overwhelmed the social-service sector of El Paso. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection held over 13,400 migrants in custody at the time, including nearly 3,500 in El Paso. “A crisis level is 6,000; 13,000 is unprecedented,” stated border patrol commissioner Kevin McAleenan during a 2019 news conference.

The 30-foot-tall “Grand Candela” memorial in the parking lot of the Cielo Vista Walmart store in El Paso commemorates the victims of the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting. When illuminated at night, “the light transcends borders and connects our hearts as one community,” reads a plaque at the base of the memorial. (Photo by Vera Haller)

Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric also hit the El Paso-Juarez region particularly hard. When a man armed with an AK-47 walked into an El Paso Walmart and killed 22 people on Aug. 3, 2019, the attack was seen as a direct attack on the twin cities’ binational character.

The store, located in Cielo Vista, is the closest Walmart to the border and it is where many Juarez residents come to shop. Out of the 23 victims, eight of them were Mexican citizens, leading many to believe this was an attack on the Latino people.

For a month after the shooting, Friar Mario L. Serrano, who runs the Catholic Church’s ministry program at UTEP, went to the Walmart and walked through the store, lending help to anyone who needed it. “I often wondered what it was for Martin Luther King Jr. to minister in such a toxic environment,” said Serrano. “Or I don’t think I have to wonder anymore. Because that’s the reality, right? So many of them were just fearful right of saying like, Father Friar this is crazy, how can we address this?”

Now, the coronavirus has further disrupted life in the area. For many individuals, crossing the border is simply a means of getting to school, work or access to adequate health care. Store owners rely on profits from Juarez residents who come to El Paso to shop. Since the coronavirus outbreak began, resulting in the partial closure of the U.S-Mexico border, hundreds of binationals are left with no choice but to put an indefinite pause on their lives.

“More people come to the food pantry now with the pandemic,” said Pitts, noting that the church has moved food distribution to the outdoors. “The elderly that used to volunteer were all sent home and its parish employees doing it now. Some of the landlords are still trying to evict people, which is insane.”

The events of recent years have done much to change life at the border.

“When I was growing up, I remember we would go to Juarez and come back; it was very easy because there was a time when you wouldn’t even show a birth certificate,” recalls Joash Alanis, a student at UTEP, where more than 960 students out of the 25,000 have a permanent Juarez address, according to the university’s website.

Father Friar blessing incoming UTEP students who are part of the Catholic Church’s ministry program. (Handout photo from Father Friar)

Throughout the years, stricter measures have been set in place, making crossing between the intertwined cities a long and agonizing wait, especially for students who often have to wake up before sunrise to get to class on time.

A rally is held outside the Buddhist temple on the UTEP campus. The university’s architecture is styled after the Himalayan country of Bhutan. (Handout photo from Professor Heyman)

“I tutor at a middle school, and at that middle school there’s usually a lot of them that come from the other side of town,” said Alanis, noting that many of them will be falling asleep in the middle of class. “I’ll talk to the kids and be like, what’s going on? They’ll be like ‘I’m just so tired. I woke up at three in the morning.’”

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, UTEP has transitioned to distance learning. Professor Heyman described the existing efforts the university already had in place, prior to the coronavirus pandemic, to ensure its students would not fall behind. “Professors are aware of the fact that students have to work for a living, and that they’re commuting.”

Nonetheless, if the partial closure of the border wall becomes a complete closure, he is unsure of what the future might hold for binational individuals. “If they do something like that at the border, it’s going to have a whole bunch of wrenching effects on our students at the university, it’s going to have wrenching effects on binational families. It’s going to have an effect on the economy.”

Amanda Salazar and Anacaona Rodriguez Martinez contributed reporting to this story.

Pandemic Sparks Entrepreneurship at the Border: Small Non-Profits Make Protective Gear for Healthcare Workers in Both Juarez and El Paso

At Fab Lab, skeleton crews of two-to-three people produce face masks, working six-hour shifts to maintain social distancing. (Photo courtesy of Fab Lab)

By Aurora Ferrer

Small, non-profit, “makerspaces” in El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico are helping to combat the personal protective equipment shortage for medical workers on the border.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, El Paso-based Fab Lab (short for Fabrication Laboratory), has put its technological resources, including 3D printers, towards making face masks and face shields for front line workers, as well as parts for respirators. An open-source, design-and-manufacturing organization, Fab Lab El Paso is a non-profit that also provides STEM training for students and entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, its sister labs, Fab Lab Juarez and Fab Lab Paso del Norte in Mexico have also started to make protective equipment, using funds recently raised through donations.

Governments in both the United States and Mexico have widely faced criticism over severe shortages of protective equipment in hospitals and other healthcare facilities, which have been shown to place healthcare workers in greater danger of contracting the highly contagious and often deadly virus. According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. has the highest rate of Covid-19 infections in the world, while Mexico has the third-highest rate among Latin American countries.

As of mid-May, the El Paso County Health Department reported 1,234 cases and 82 deaths. The state of Chihuahua in Mexico reported 943 cases and 169 deaths.

The Fab Labs on both sides of the border decided to answer the call for protective equipment before they had received funding. Samuel Badillo, operations director at Fundación Axcel, which runs the Juarez Fab Labs, said, “We just started doing it” and decided to figure out how to pay for it later.

Fab Lab El Paso has struggled to obtain funds from the Payroll Protection Program, a problem plaguing many small American businesses and non-profits. (Photo courtesy of Fab Lab)

With skeleton crews of two-to-three people working short shifts (about six hours) because of social distancing efforts, the organization was able to turn out 3,000 masks in about three weeks.

Fundación Axcel, founded in 2013, provides training, consulting and education for high school students, entrepreneurs and anyone else who wants to learn about technology. Through its Fab Labs it also focuses on digital fabrications and rapid prototyping. It is the non-profit arm of the Technology Hub, which according to its website, “is a binational business incubator built to stimulate regional innovation, entrepreneurship, and industry.”

Originally founded in 2014, Fab Lab El Paso recently received a $1,500 grant from the Paso Del Norte Health Foundation (PDNHF) for the protective-equipment project. Additional funding has been provided by United Healthcare, as well as other companies, organizations and individual supporters.

Cathy Chen, executive director of Fab Lab, says the organization has sent protective equipment to as many as 10 clinics in low-income El Paso communities, as well as several senior centers. (Handout photo from Fab Lab)

Cathy Chen, executive director at Fab Lab El Paso said the organization has sent out “hundreds of PPE to Centro de Salud Familiar La Fe, which has 10 clinics in El Paso and serves low-income community needs.” She also notes that United Healthcare and “affiliate senior care centers” have received hundreds of protective devices, as well as sending “1,500 pieces of N100 mask frames and face shields to [nonprofits] in Mexico for community distribution.”

Fab Lab El Paso is also fulfilling daily smaller orders for protective equipment. “All in all, we have sent out almost 3,000 pieces of PPE and are in the process of prototyping custom PPE for specific medical needs, such as dentists and surgeons,” said Chen.

The Mexican organizations have had more success attracting government support than Fab Lab El Paso. In addition to private donations, which included an SLA printer (used for respirator parts,) the Juarez Fab Labs have received some support from their local government.

Meanwhile, Fab Lab El Paso has struggled to obtain funds from the Payroll Protection Program (PPP), a problem that has persisted among many small American businesses and non-profits. “We did qualify for a small advance from the SBA (Small Business Administration) under the Economic Injury and Disaster Loan program,” said Chen, noting that the organization has not yet received a response to its application for a PPP loan.

The El Paso border has been hit especially hard, economically. With the U.S./ Mexico border closed to non-essential travel, and the quarantine shutting down all non-essential businesses, trade between El Paso and Juarez has come to a standstill. According to Workforce Solutions Borderplex, 38,104 unemployment insurance claims were filed on the U.S. side of the border between March 29th and April 30th.

 

The Pandemic Stymies Efforts to Help the Poorest Communities: Local Organizations that Provide Vital Social Supports Are Impeded by Social Distancing

Church volunteers sort donations and put together bags of groceries for Sacred Heart’s food pantry, one of the few in-person programs the church is maintaining during the pandemic. (Photo by the Rev. Stephen Pitts)

By Anacaona Martinez Rodriguez and Amanda Salazar

At the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in El Paso’s “El Segundo” neighborhood, just blocks from the city’s main border crossing to Juarez, Mexico, the Rev. Stephen Pitts worries how parishioners are faring without the many outreach services the church has had to stop, or scale back, under the state’s coronavirus stay-at-home order.

But he is most worried about the emotional toll that the lockdown is having on members.

“These people have survived the violence in Juarez; the fact that they can’t be together now is worse,” Pitts said during a video interview after the state went into lockdown to curb the spread of the virus on April 13. “That’s how they survive everything. I think there’s a lot of loneliness.”

For families at the border who depend on religious institutions and community activities in times of hardship, not being able to congregate and ride out the challenges created by the pandemic together has been particularly difficult, he said.

High school players from El Segundo Barrio Soccer Club compete in El Paso. (Photo courtesy of El Segundo Barrio Soccer Club’s Facebook page)

Organizers of El Segundo Soccer Club, which engages children in league sports and supports the families of its players, also have ceased all games and activities, including plans to take one of its teams to participate in the state championship.

“All of that just canceled right now,” said Juan Adame, one of the coaches of the soccer club, which started in 2011 and has grown to serve about 150 children, ages eight to 18.

“We never thought nine years ago something like this was going to stop all that,” Adame said. “The state tournament is very important for all these kids because it’s been the way that we’ve been kind of selling it to this team, to everybody. ‘If you win state, you’re going to be recognized.’”

Without being able to go to states, he said, the players have lost the possibility of realizing a high-profile win, possibly playing in college and then, just maybe, playing professionally.

Sacred Heart and El Segundo Soccer club serve one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in the country. According to U.S. Census data from El Segundo’s 79901 zip code, the average annual income of residents is $21,000, with 60 percent of the neighborhood living below the poverty line.

Pitts said a strong sense of community, ingrained in the parish and among most El Pasoans, has meant that people were willing to stay home during the pandemic and self-isolate to protect each other, especially the older or sick members of their neighborhood. But the lockdown has kept them from worship and other services the church offers.

Volunteers from the church’s food pantry distribute groceries. (Photo by the Rev. Stephen Pitts)

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the church also has had to stop most of its outreach programs, which included citizenship and adult-education classes, except for the food pantry, which it continues to run.

Because many parishioners do not have internet connections, Sacred Heart has not been able to reach many people through its virtual services and masses. The church’s messages of hope are not reaching enough people, Pitts said.

Additionally, Efren Loya Gomez, an assistant religious director at the Sacred Heart, said many parishioners have reported having problems with landlords and employers during the pandemic.

“There was a lady that stopped me the other day to help her fill out a money order,” he said. “She told me her landlord told her she has to pay $25 dollars a day every day she was late with her rent. If not, he was going to evict her.”

Gomez said some parishioners were suffering economically because they face job losses and were not eligible for federal stimulus money because they were undocumented.  “With the pandemic, they’re suffering and they’re stressing out,” he said.

A mural depicting the rich history of Sacred Heart Catholic Church adorns side buildings along E. Father Rahm Avenue where many of the parish’s outreach programs are housed. (Photo by Vera Haller)​

El Segundo Soccer Club executive director Simon Chandler, who founded the league after coaching his own son on a community team, said his players also were experiencing anxiety during the pandemic.

“Their fears are very kid-like fears,” he said. “They’re worried about whether they’re going to pass sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, what happens if they don’t do the work, that their computer doesn’t work. They have problems with the software and all that stuff.”

Chandler, who also works as the Community Schools Coordinator in the El Paso public school system, was a school teacher when he started the club, figuring it would be a good way to engage the kids in the low-income neighborhood where he taught and lived.

“As an educator, you’re always finding ways to kind of motivate your kids, to hook them into whatever you are doing and so soccer made perfect sense,” he said.

El Segundo is a predominantly Latino area; Chandler estimated that 90 percent or more of the people living in El Paso speak Spanish. Soccer, or fútbol as it is known to much of the world, is one of the most popular sports in Latin America, Spain and Portugal.

The soccer club has multiple teams for kids of all ages. The club also offers services for the members of the players’ families.

While their child or sibling is at practice, relatives can participate in one of the soccer club’s English language courses or citizenship classes. Those programs also have been cancelled due to the coronavirus and stay-at-home order.

Adame, whose younger brother Marcos, 18, has been playing with the Segundo soccer club since it began, said the club plays an important role in the players’ development.

Students from El Segundo Barrio Soccer Club, on their way to compete in last year’s state championships, pose on an Austin street. This year’s championship was cancelled due to the pandemic. (Photo courtesy of El Segundo Barrio Soccer Club’s Facebook page)

“It exposes the kids here to the outside world, not just in this community,” Adame said. “Even just taking them out to play on the East side of the city, just to take them [to] play every weekend, that’s sort of something big because a lot of parents don’t have a car here.”

Soccer was the way that the club drew the kids in, but it was never the ultimate goal.

“I’m thinking if there’s another word other than ‘family,’ but I can’t think of one,” Adame said. “That’s what it is. I arrived in this community at about 10 years old.  My mind is here, my heart is here. Now with this club, it’s my passion.”