Border Observatory
SITUATION REPORT: PANDEMIC AT THE BORDER
Isolated from other major urban centers, the COVID-19 pandemic took its time arriving in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez region. Once it did arrive in mid-March, it became apparent that our community was particularly vulnerable. A month of lockdown gave way to a premature reopening of the Texas economy and the willingness of state political leadership to sacrifice essential workers collided with the effects of economic inequality, a historically chronic lack of investment in healthcare, and tightened immigration enforcement at the border.
Migrante Embarazada: Rocío Gallegos / La Verdad
Statement
George Floyd and Nationwide Protests Against Police Brutality
God hears the cry of the poor. George Floyd was murdered. Those whose breath of life is daily made precarious by the heavy knee of power can truly know the value of life and liberty and what is at stake when it is threatened. And, like God, before the question of the sacredness of life all of us must take a side. Not just in words but in action. In active solidarity with those who will no longer be quiet.
Click here to read more about the reality of racism that has been part of the experience of many on our country and border.
After the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many other Black lives at the hands of police, communities across the nation are engaging in a reckoning over the future of policing. Violence by police against Black people and other people of color is a systemic problem rooted in our nation’s history of racist violence. Recent events have made it clearer than ever that structural change is needed.