While these sudden migratory trends might have shocked any other city, Altamirano explained that migration to Tijuana isn’t anything new. In fact, it lies at the root of Tijuana’s history.  

 

“Tijuana has always been a city of migrants—it’s the reason we’ve grown so much. In the past 50 years alone, we’ve experienced an explosive migration boom due to the industrialization of the city—manufacturing, textile factories, etc. People from all over the world come to work in Tijuana. The city has grown into a cultural mosaic.”

 

However, the pastor also acknowledged the disparities between the different classes of migrants that relocate to Tijuana. While those coming to start businesses or buy land are often received well, those migrating because of poverty are often excluded and marginalized by locals, particularly those seeking asylum or looking to cross into the U.S. 

 

“Well, when they [poor migrants] begin wanting to integrate into the community, they quickly run into problems. Sometimes locals don’t want to let them rent a room. There’s a lot of problems with prejudice sentiment against them.”

 

These same feelings were revived amid the 2018 caravans. While Altamirano noted that the increase in Central American migration did spur a lot of identification with the migrants due to similarities in culture and language with Mexicans, a lot of prejudice arose as well.

 

“We [migrant right advocates] bumped heads with a lot of people, the ones who reacted in a negative way against these communities. Many of them were encouraged by extremists.”

 

 

One of these xenophobic figures that Altamirano mentioned was Tijuana’s municipal president at the time, Juan Manuel Gastélum (better known locally as “el pates”) who was known for his repressive, anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric. During the first caravan, the municipal president planned to implement a check point outside of Tijuana to prevent the migrants from entering the border town. Of course, this was actually illegal to implement for an official at his level. 

 

“Yet human rights organizations, local activists, and defenders of migrations rights, well they rose up. We rose up in opposition and filed complaints all levels of government—local state, national, even at the international level,” Altamirano proudly explained.

 

“Why? Because the premise is that migration is a right. It’s an inalienable right.”

 

Unfortunately, many of those charged with processing asylum-seekers at the Southern Border don’t seem to think so.

 

Nicole Ramos, the Border Rights Project Director at Al Otro Lado—a bi-national, frontline organization that provides holistic legal and humanitarian support to migrants and asylum-seekers on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico Border—spoke to me about the injustices perpetrated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as well as the Border Patrol in regard to processing asylum seekers. 

 

The daughter of Puerto Rican parents, Ramos worked as a federal public defender in Montgomery, Alabama for six years, prior to moving Tijuana, where she began volunteering at local migrant shelters. Although she didn’t initially plan to make a job out of it, she noticed that there was a great need for sound legal advice among the migrant communities. However, as a trained legal expert, she took notice of much more. 

 

“What became really clear over the course of doing this work, was that asylum seekers were being turned away from the ports of entry. And to me, that was really confusing because I had never encountered federal law enforcement that's so blatantly disregarded federal law.”

 

At first, Ramos thought that this could’ve resulted from a language or job training issue, or that the federal enforcement officials simply didn’t understand their obligations. However, she soon realized the truth when she began accompanying asylum seekers to the port of entry. 

 

“And then it became clear that this was very intentional. This wasn't a few bad apples and that this was born out of both directions coming from higher ups, but also just the racism and nationalism that's endemic to that particular agency.”

 

Such extreme measures taken by these agencies have only resulted in heightened precarity and vulnerability to violence for the displaced. 

 

Alejandra Gonzalez was only 18 years old when she had fled Guatemala with her two daughters and her husband in 2019. Now, two years later, she’s still waiting for her court date in July of 2021. 

 

“We left because of extortion. I was a housewife, but I had my own business on the side. I would sell chicken eggs, and well, when the maras found out, I had to begin paying them a heavy extortion fee for about three months. But, at one point I just couldn’t. The little I had was for my daughters, and there came a time where I couldn’t afford to pay it any longer.”

 

After three additional months of being unable to pay the fee, the gang threatened her family.

 

“They said they were going to hit me where it hurt most. They said they were going to kill my daughters in front of me, then they were going to kill me. We didn’t know what to do.”

 

The family was forced to flee immediately without any resources at their disposal. Still, slowly, over the course of the month, the family arrived at Tijuana with the help of migrant shelters along the path, as well as strangers they encountered who had graciously offer them rides up north. On nights where they couldn’t find a shelter, Gonzalez said that locals often came to their aid with food or clothes.

 

Even with the assistance and help that Gonzalez had come across, her time in Tijuana has been especially difficult. She recounted the challenges and trauma encountered in her day-to-day life.