Migrants – and Mexican aid groups – adapt to shifts at US border

When Pat Murphy became director of the Casa del Migrante here in 2013, the shelter exclusively served men deported from the United States.

Running a migrant shelter at the U.S.-Mexico border was challenging, he recalls, but after a few years, he settled into a routine. “I remember thinking, ‘OK, I’ve got it now. I know what to expect,’” says Padre Pat, as the Catholic priest is known.  

Sitting behind his desk in a small meeting room at the shelter, which overlooks this sprawling city, he laughs at his naiveté. Over the past several years, whom his shelter serves – and how – has transformed so frequently and dramatically that he says the only thing he “expects” now is constant change.

From evolving legal procedures at the border to the fluctuating demographics of those arriving, these shifts are forcing organizations working with migrants in Mexico to become more nimble than ever before. And as both Mexico and the U.S. prepare for presidential elections this year, immigration and border control are taking center stage in political discourse – and in policymaking.

“It’s complex because the response is always reactive,” says María Inés Barrios de la O, a professor of migration studies at the College of the Northern Border near Tijuana. “Whenever there’s a change, especially in migratory policy, it affects the flow and permanence of migratory populations. That’s a challenge squarely for civil society, because they’re the ones attending to these individuals,” she says. “Changes happen day to night, and the challenges just accelerate.” 

An open-air waiting room

Serving vulnerable populations at Mexico’s northern border has long been an exercise in flexibility. Local, national, and international policy changes – not to mention global events such as wars or pandemics – affect who is arriving, and in what numbers. There is limited government assistance and oversight for migrant services, with civil society and religious organizations often stepping in to fill gaps.

But as Padre Pat’s experience suggests, the past eight years have been a particularly complex time at the U.S.-Mexico border. He refers to the unexpected swings in “stages.”

• The arrival of new groups of foreign nationals, predominately Haitians.
• Large-scale caravans of migrants arriving from Central America.
• The 2019 Migrant Protection Protocols, known as the “Remain in Mexico” program, which returned tens of thousands of migrants back to Mexico to await court dates in the U.S.
• The COVID-19 pandemic and U.S. policies like Title 42 that essentially shuttered the border.
• The expansion of a U.S. mobile app for asylum-seekers, which has meant migrants are congregating in nonborder cities, straining support networks in new ways.

He knows there’s more on the horizon. U.S. border states such as Texas are now experimenting in their own, often severe, border enforcement. Large groups traveling north toward the U.S. started migrating together once again in the new year. Last December saw a monthly record number of U.S. Border Patrol encounters at the border. 

Mexico’s border cities have coped in diverse ways. 

Over the past 40 years, Tijuana, on the traditional migratory route, has developed an infrastructure of services supported largely by churches and nongovernmental organizations, from soup kitchens to shelters like Casa Del Migrante to health clinics. 

On the other hand, until 2019, all of Ciudad Juárez, which sits across from El Paso, Texas, had only two shelters. With a reputation for high murder rates and disappearances in the early 2000s, the city wasn’t somewhere migrants or deportees eyed – or lingered. But then came policies like “Remain in Mexico.” Within five years, the number of shelters in Ciudad Juárez grew to nearly 40.

Oversight for these migrant support services is thin, and government funding – though never sizable nor consistent – has essentially disappeared under the austerity measures of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. 

For shelter directors and service providers, that means relying more on fundraising. Much of their support comes from American organizations, and increasingly over the past five years from international groups like Save the Children or the United Nations.

Meeting migrants where they are

Ximena Rojas García remembers watching with anxiety as crowds of Haitians and migrants from various African countries gathered at a Tijuana border crossing in 2016. So many of the women standing for hours exposed to the elements were pregnant or traveling with small children. Ms. Rojas wondered, who was caring for them? A trained midwife, she started showing up with jugs of water and food, and offering prenatal exams in the back of her car.

Today, Ms. Rojas has a birthing center by the beach and several clinics near the border crossing in Tijuana, part of a crossborder health NGO she co-founded in 2018 called the Refugee Health Alliance (RHA).

On a recent afternoon in an RHA clinic, a midwife crouched by a patient in the waiting room with a Haitian Creole translator at her side. She explained the woman’s lab results and handed her a prescription for a diabetes test and an antibiotic, along with two small bags of dried herbs to steep in water and drink before bed.

The clinic was relatively quiet, but that can quickly change. Ms. Rojas recalls a day in 2022 when staff couldn’t open the doors in the morning because hundreds had already lined up outside clamoring for appointments. She later learned of a rumor: that people could cross the border legally with a letter from a medical professional pledging good health.

“All of the changes at the border make families stress, and struggle for answers,” she says. “Often, we’re all guessing.” 

Although Mexico guarantees the right to health care for all migrants, regardless of legal status, the public health system is oversaturated. Whether intentionally or out of a lack of knowledge, administrators often require Mexican social security numbers or other paperwork that excludes those uprooted. 

“There’s not a single day without surprises,” says Idsel Mosqueda, a psychologist at RHA. “We work with the resources we have, and they’re limited. But we also have hope.

“There’s power in having a space where people can feel safe, heard, and seen,” she says. “Even in chaos we can ask, ‘What do you need in this moment?’”