Shelter sickness: Migrants see health problems linger and worsen while waiting at border

Two days after arriving at a temporary migrant shelter at the border with the U.S. in June, Rosa Viridiana Ceron Alpizar’s 9-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son fell ill. Most of the kids in the converted gym had stomach issues after being served a meal of sausage and beans, she recalled. Alpizar’s daughter quickly got better, but her son didn’t. José had a fever and diarrhea and was throwing up. When the shelter nurses couldn’t help, Alpizar sought out a private doctor, who prescribed antibiotics. In mid-June, Alpizar, her partner, kids, and brother moved to Leona Vicario, a former factory that the Mexican government had converted to house migrants waiting to cross into the U.S. Weeks later, though, a doctor said her son still hadn’t improved. “He showed me the chart again and told me it was still the same,” Alpizar said in Spanish through an interpreter while at a shopping complex near the shelter. “He is still malnourished.”

Three years ago, Mexico had few shelters for migrants making their way to the U.S. People seeking asylum, like Alpizar and her family, presented themselves to U.S. authorities and were usually either detained in American facilities or released on parole while they awaited their proceedings. In either case, they had potential access to the U.S. health care system. But a constellation of U.S. immigration policies, a growing number of asylum-seekers and refugees, and the COVID-19 pandemic have transformed Mexican border towns into holding areas for people who are waiting for policies to change and are hoping to cross and head north. And despite the Biden administration’s recent efforts to unwind some of those policies, little seems likely to change in the coming months. Alpizar and her family are now among thousands of people living in dozens of recently built Juárez shelters, just a few miles from El Paso. The wait — which can last months — has led some migrants, like Alpizar’s children, to develop health problems; exacerbated people’s chronic ailments, like hypertension or diabetes; left some in dire conditions without care; and compounded the trauma experienced by those fleeing their homes.