7979
SPECIAL REPORT
WOMEN and the PANDEMICXiomara was already having labor pains when she
presented herself to U.S. Border Patrol officials to make a claim
for asylum. She had fled gang violence in El Salvador six months
earlier, working under the table in Mexico to afford bus tickets
for her and her three young children to make it to the border.
When she finally arrived, nine months pregnant and feeling con-
tractions, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) offered to
take her to a hospital. But she had heard about family separa-
tions and was worried about losing her kids if she were hospital-
ized, so instead she was sent back to the streets of Ciudad Juárez
at night, alone with the children and with another on the way.
“It was sad, and I started to cry,” Xiomara, 33, tells TIME in
Spanish. “I really thought they would let me through to the U.S.”
Instead, she says, officials kept telling her “that I shouldn’t have
showed up.” It was May 23; the U.S. government’s rule, which
states that any migrants showing up at the border be immedi-
ately turned away to Mexico, even if they wish to make a claim
for asylum, an international right, because of the risks posed
by COVID-19, was put in place in March. Since then, CBP has
conducted more than 444,000 “expulsions” of this type at the
U.S.-Mexico border.
After a kind stranger in Juárez told Xiomara the name of a
shelter he knew, she took her children, ages 10, 6 and 4, only to
find it was full. But it didn’t matter: in any event, Xiomara and
her children would have to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks
before being allowed into any shelter. An official from the Hotel
Flamingo—which has since been dubbed Hotel Filtro, or “Fil-
ter Hotel” for its reputation with migrants—came to pick her
up. There, Leticia Chavarría, a Juárez physician and fierce ad-
vocate for migrant women, offered to examine her at no cost.
It was the first time Xiomara had seen a doctor throughout
her pregnancy, but not for lack of trying. A doctor’s visit in
Mexico would have cost her more than 3,000 Mexican pesos—
about $143. She didn’t have the money.
It is impossible to know how many pregnant people have
ended up stranded in Mexico as a result of Trump-era immi-
gration policies, including expulsions; the Migrant Protection
Protocols (MPP), otherwise known as “Remain in Mexico” pol-
icy; or “Metering,” which required those planning to claim asy-
lum to take a number and wait in Mexico before making anX
● (^) Xiomara plays
with her baby in
the nursery of the
San Juan Apóstol
migrant shelter
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MERIDITH KOHUT FOR TIME