REYNOSA, MEXICO–What led to the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border?

In July 2022, Nanzi Muro of El Tribuno del Pueblo and Francisco Mendoza, a free-lance photojournalist, went to Reynosa, Mexico to report on the humanitarian crisis affecting migrants and refugees from Venezuela, Central America, and Haiti.

Reynosa is cartel country where violence is a common occurrence. In fact, the U.S. State Department has categorized this region as a category four in security. The same as Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of danger. Yet migrants and refugees are forced to remain in this region until their asylum process is approved due to U.S. policies, such as MPP, better known as remain in Mexico, and Title 42.

Muro and Mendoza bring their stories as well as the stories of those brave warriors for human rights.

This project was made possible by donations from our readers and friends. Please donate to El Tribuno del Pueblo to continue this work of education and truth-telling that hopefully will lead to organization and action, against human rights violations.

After crossing the border into the US from Mexico, many migrants and refugees are forced to walk through the desert to evade Border Patrol checkpoints, and they end up dying from dehydration and exposure. Eduardo Canales is director of the South Texas Human Rights Center in Falfurrias, Texas, about 75 miles north of the US-Mexico border. In an interview done in July 2022 by Nanzi Muro and Francisco Mendoza for El Tribuno del Pueblo (tribunodelpueblo.org) and the People’s Tribune (peoplestribune.org), Canales discusses the center’s work creating water stations for migrating people and helping the families of missing migrants and refugees find the remains of their loved ones, and his disgust with US immigration policies that are causing people to die.

In this shocking and compelling video, Jennifer K. Harbury—an attorney, author and human rights activist who works along the US-Mexico border in McAllen, Texas and Reynosa, Mexico—describes the horrifying situation facing migrants and refugees in Reynosa as a result of US immigration policies. She discusses the migrants’ mistreatment by both US and Mexican immigration authorities; the rape, kidnapping, human trafficking and murder that many migrants have suffered in Mexico; the relief efforts by local people on both sides of the border, and the lack of response from the United Nations and the major international relief organizations. This interview was done Nanzi Muro and Francisco Mendoza in July 2022 in Reynosa for El Tribuno del Pueblo (tribunodelpueblo.org) and the People’s Tribune (peoplestribune.org).