CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico
Humanitarian response networks in northern Mexico are stretched thin between the growing number of people fleeing violence, poverty, and climate disasters in Central America, the continued expulsion of asylum seekers and migrants who enter the United States irregularly, and the lingering effects of Trump-era migration policies.
Nowhere is this pressure being felt more acutely than in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city of around 1.5 million bordering El Paso, Texas.
Many of the more than 20 migrant shelters in the city are already operating beyond the limits set by COVID-19 social distancing requirements. And civil society organisations are struggling to provide aid and additional housing spaces, while support from the Mexican government and international NGOs lags behind the growing needs.