The Feds Targeted The Border For Pandemic Enforcement. Did It Work?

By: Mar?a M?ndez, Angela Kocherga and Paul Flahive

For over a year Delfina Gracilazo has traveled across the Texas-Mexico border between Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass, TX to sell her blood. It’s a common way to make some extra money at the border. She stands outside one of Eagle Pass’s two Plasma donation facilities waiting with a group of other Mexican citizens who can sell it multiple times a month, earning about $40 per donation. The money didn’t used to make it back.

“We would come donate, stop by the stores and shop and then we would go back,” Garcilazo said in Spanish. “Now, it’s different. We come and go straight back.”

But now all that has changed. The Texas-Mexico border has been closed to non essential travel for nine months. Since then Gracilazo has been advised they are only allowed to sell their blood but not to shop.

The U.S. is happy to take their blood as part of its $21 billion plasma industry — which in turn sells it to big pharmaceutical companies. But the message is — under the border closure: their blood may be welcome here but their money is no good.

The United States Government passed $2 trillion in economic relief this spring for businesses and residents, but the federal response abating the disease has been limited to things like travel, and one of the only active enforcement actions taken is here on Texas’ southern border.

A press conference back in March severed a huge part of travel along Texas’ southern border. Unless traveling for education, military or big supply chains like the auto industry, you weren’t getting across. But there are a number of grey areas and loopholes — like the fact that Americans often aren’t stopped when crossing into Mexico at these land crossings…and of course the blood.

And that is exacerbating an already bad situation for brick and mortar small businesses suffering because of the pandemic.

It’s just one example of how the border closure falls mostly on the people who can afford it the least on both sides of the border. And it’s just one of many inconsistencies — one of the bizarre facets — of the policy that affects an area where the Dallas Fed says $450 billion in economic transactions happen each year and where 80% of our Mexican imports come through. Mexico is our second largest trading partner.

The Impact Of A Sister-City Economy

Since shopping is considered nonessential, small businesses on the U.S. side of the border are really getting hit hard by this.

Jaime Rodriguez is a business owner in downtown Eagle Pass, where he notes on a recent Tuesday morning there’s pretty much no traffic.

He knows that people are keeping their money in Mexico. His family’s grocery store is a few blocks away from one of Eagle Pass’ international bridges and from the two plasma donation centers downtown.

Garlands and red bows decorate the store for the holidays, but there are many empty or boarded stores with “For Rent” or “For Sale” signs on almost every street. Some wholesale, clothing and flower shops remain, but the bulk of their customers have been missing for more than nine months now.

“There’s only one main street in all of Eagle Pass. And it’s sad to see it go down the way it is. You know it’s thrived through everything else, and it’s supported by the Mexican shopper,” said Rodriguez.

Eagle Grocery, which sits on Main Street, has been a pillar of the area since it was first established by Rodriguez’s grandfather and his brother in 1939. In the upper level, old photos of the store and memorabilia line the walls. It’s been recognized by the Texas government for its historic value.

Santillana is a U.S. citizen who lives in the El Paso area, so she can still go back and forth to Mexico. The border shutdown can’t stop U.S. citizens or legal residents from coming back home. But Mexican citizens cannot come into the U.S. to shop or visit family.

She said this situation created hardships for people who need to buy items for their homes or clothing, which is lower cost and often higher quality. She’s helping her own family in Mexico, but others may rely on “pasadoras” or informal shoppers who take things across to supply small scale merchants or individuals for a fee.

The reality is there’s a thriving informal labor market. People who have border crossing cards doing informal work, even though it’s not supposed to happen.

Domestic workers — including day laborers, gardeners, maids, child and elder care workers — all allow other women in the U.S. to work full-time.

Marisol Marin is a U.S. citizen who cleans houses, so she can work without any issues. She does jobs in El Paso but lives in Juarez with her parents and three children.

Marin said she knows she’s fortunate she is able to cross back and forth to work because she’s a U.S. citizen. Of course authorities can’t stop US citizens from returning to their home country. But she knows plenty of people in Juarez who can no longer come to El Paso because of the border travel restrictions.

“I feel sorry for them because a lot of people used to cross over here to work,” said Marin.

The global online shopping companies that are doing booming business in the U.S. are also thriving in Mexico.

Companies like Amazon, Ali Baba, Mercado Libre are big winners. It used to be hard to order online; one needed a U.S. credit card. Now, anyone can order online and pay for items with cash at chain convenience stores.

Concerns about traditional buying patterns changing for good which will be a big blow to Texas retailers on the border and beyond. Also hotels and restaurants and entertainment, sporting venues – busloads of Cowboy fans who come up from Monterrey to games in Dallas. In some areas of the border there are ski resorts and some mountain villages nearby that usually are filled with tourists from Mexico who celebrate the holidays in the U.S.

Impacts Far From The Border

The border travel restrictions have impacts well beyond the border. Mexican Nationals who travel into the U.S. are often tourists who ski, stay in hotels and of course shop.

In a Laredo parking lot, a fleet of vans sits unused. They used to take Mexican nationals to visit other Texas cities, like San Antonio 160 miles away, but no one can cross to use them, and they have sat idle for 9 months.

The Shops at La Cantera — the open air mall on the city’s affluent far northwest side — are normally packed this time of year. They were mostly empty on a recent weekday.