“Can you take us in your car to the next gate?” the group of migrants asked. I was in Ciudad Juárez, along the U.S.-Mexico border, with another doctor and members of my organization, Hope Border Institute. It was early May, and we were driving along the banks of the Rio Grande, providing whatever humanitarian aid and medical care we could to migrants stopped by the concertina wire put up by the Texas National Guard.
This group of migrants, three young children and several adults, were desperate. They looked exhausted and dehydrated. Their windswept faces looked at us for a response. We looked around uncomfortably. Every bit of me wanted to give these desperate families a ride, but the reality was that it wasn’t safe—for us or for them. They said they had been walking along the concertina wire for four days. They were out of water, and now they were out of money. The day before, they said they’d been robbed of all of their money and material possessions by cartel members. Now, the National Guard was telling them they would have to continue walking for miles to find a point to be processed. The soldiers, clad in desert camouflage and touting assault rifles, looked on as we talked to the migrants.
