80 Time March 15/March 22, 2021
SPECIAL REPORT
WOMEN and the PANDEMIC
initial claim. MPP alone has kept more
than 71,000 people waiting in Mexico for
their asylum claims to be adjudicated in
the U.S. since the policy began in Janu-
ary 2019. As of January of this year, more
than 29,000 people still have active MPP
cases, according to Syracuse University’s
Transactional Records Access Clearing-
house, a research organization. Given
how many women have arrived at the
U.S.-Mexico border in the past two years,
it’s reasonable to estimate that there have
been thousands who were pregnant, or
became pregnant while they waited to
cross into the U.S.
Though the MPP agreement grants
asylum seekers access to Mexico’s
health care system, actually using it is
difficult. Migrants from across Latin
America may not know how to nav-
igate the Mexican health care sys-
tem, have the right documents with
them or be able to afford care, and
face discrimination because of their immigration status.
“This is a total vulnerability that these women face,” Cha-
varría tells TIME in Spanish. “They’re women; alone with chil-
dren; and, on top of that, migrants; on top of that, pregnant.”
Being an asylum-seeking woman can increase the risk of
a stillbirth or abortive outcomes, according to German re-
searchers who studied pregnant asylum seekers in South Ger-
many between 2010 and 2016. The physical stress alone can
complicate their pregnancies, to say nothing of the emotional
stress. Chavarría has encountered women experiencing miscar-
riages or other dangerous complications, without health care.
Luckily for Xiomara, her chance meeting with Chavarría
led to becoming one of the first members of Las Zadas (short
for embarazadas, meaning “pregnant” in Spanish), a project
launched in June by immigration lawyer Taylor Levy, along
with a midwife and several community organizers in Juárez,
to try to keep pregnant asylum seekers from falling through
the cracks. Las Zadas—the only program of its type along the
border— provides free health care, legal advice, products for ba-
bies, and pre- and post natal care like vitamins, menstrual pads
and breast pumps. Some of the women live together at San Juan
Apóstol, a Juárez shelter for migrant women, while receiving
treatment, so they can support and advocate for each other.●
Above: Psychologist
Galarza leads
a group-therapy
session with
children living at the
San Juan Apóstol
shelter. Right:
Migrant women mop
the sanctuary floors
of the associated
San Juan Apóstol
evangelical parish,
while a baby
rests nearby