YMCA has several houses around the US-Mexico border, Tijuana, Baja California; Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua; Piedras Negras, Coahuila and; Agua Prieta, Sonora that, provide care and lodging, food, health services and access to media. (Immigration Nexus)

According to their website, they have a special model of care:
– Open door shelters; where minors have freedom of mobility, contrary to DIF shelters that do not allow their departure. Notwithstanding this policy, due to the violence in some border cities such as Ciudad Juarez and Agua Prieta, the government has determined regulations that prevent the YMCAs from maintaining the open door policy. It is important to note that children can maintain telephone communication with their families at all times.

Casa YMCA receives children between 12 and 17 years of age once they have been repatriated and designated by the Chihuahua State Attorney General’s Office for the Protection of Children and Adolescents (Procuraduría de Protección de Niñas, Niños y Adolescentes del Estado de Chihuahua).

Although the organization does not focus on migrants in particular, it does serve them and is registered as part of the network of organizations that provide health services to migrants. It has a “Cross Border Program for people with HIV” that focuses on providing follow-up and care to the population in mobility.

They offer sensitization and information workshops, free care and prevention packages, psychological care, etc.

Regarding legal accompaniment, KIND has a network of lawyers on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border so that children without families can have legal representation at no cost.

Once children are able to establish legal status in the U.S., KIND has a multidisciplinary strategy to help and support them in coping with the trauma of mobility and “KIND’s Social Services team helps KIND’s U.S. clients adjust to a new country, language, home and community, and address the traumas most of them have experienced before coming to the United States and during their journey to the United States.” (KIND, social services).

In Mexico the organization arrived in 2019 establishing offices around several strategic points: Juarez, Matamoros, Mexicali, Mexico City, Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Queretaro, Palenque, Reynosa and Tijuana.

According to its web page, it has several axes:

1. Legal protection. “HIAS in Mexico helps refugees, asylum seekers and migrants to obtain legal protection when filing their asylum applications in the U.S. or when applying for legal protection in Mexico”. To achieve this, it offers workshops where it informs migrants about their rights to access health care and public and humanitarian issues, but also analyzes individual cases to assist with their legal status, working with a network of lawyers on both sides of the border.
2. Community mental health and psychosocial support. “Staff provide specialized mental health counseling, both remotely and in person, and provide referrals for psychiatric care.”
3. Gender-based violence prevention and response. Helps migrants of any age who, because of their sexual and gender preferences, have been displaced and experience various forms of violence on the migrant journey and in their places of origin. “HIAS Mexico offers survivor-centered services to help reduce the risk of gender-based violence, including gender-based violence case management, psychosocial support and health services.” (UNHCR, 2021).

In May 2021, the President of the United States of America announced that he would seek support from various organizations to assess the cases of refugee migrants that they would accept in that country, within those organizations it was presumed the possible participation of HIAS as one of the 6 organizations chosen for such an act. (Spagat, 2021)

As part of their rescues, they have transported many people when faced with the urgency or lack of an ambulance. According to Domínguez (2018),

“Their work also consists of helping migrants. From Práxedis G. Guerrero to Jerónimo they are in charge of locating migrants and take provisions to desert areas. Another of the situations for which they are prepared is the treatment of migrants arriving from other countries such as El Salvador and Honduras, because they arrive from farther away, they sometimes find them more frightened and euphoric, added Diaz. The brigade also explains to the migrants the dangers along the way, and provides them with emergency numbers in case of any eventuality.”

“In the area of migrants it has a solid work in the defense of the human rights of adult persons in conditions of transit, detention and repatriation, as well as children and adolescents (NNA) border migrants, in transit and applicants for refugee status.”

According to InfoDigna, DHIA offers the following services:

• We document abuses during the apprehension-detention-expulsion process.
• We file administrative complaints before the internal control bodies of the immigration authorities in the United States.
• We manage procedures for the recovery of belongings.
• We carry out requests for immigration records, records and punishment.
• We assist in locating detained persons.
• We work in liaison with the Mexican Consular Network and family members of deceased persons in their immigration crossing to the United States.

It is important to highlight that DHIA also focuses on physical and mental health services to address problems faced by migrants in case they need them. It also offers educational, social and legal strategies.

According to Isn Staff:
This new effort, called Estamos Unidos: Proyecto de Asilo / Asylum Project, will follow the model being used in Tijuana, south of San Diego. There, volunteers from around the country provide legal guidance, along with a variety of other services, coordinated by the nonprofit Al Otro Lado. CLINIC strategic capacity officer Luis Guerra, who worked with Al Otro Lado to build the Tijuana program, and CLINIC staff attorney Tania Guerrero will establish the Juarez project, which Guerrero will lead. (Staff; 2019)

The initiative was born with the implementation of the “Migrant Protection Protocol” and “Remain in Mexico” programs that deport migrants and leave them in border cities in Mexico to face U.S. courts (Jones, 2019).

After two years of operation, the members of “Estamos Unidos, Asylum Project” speak of the modifications they suffered with the arrival of Covid-19, when, in the absence of social outreach, they had to adapt to another type of help, expanding virtual networks to continue providing legal advice to migrants (Bell, 2021).

It should be noted that Clinic Legal has also spoken out on different occasions against U.S. protocols towards migrants. (Martinez, 2021)

The organization is based on comprehensive care: it provides housing for the girls for as long as they are under 18 years of age; they receive formal education based on public education models and receive psychological care.

The girls received by the Hogar must be referred by the State or be under its guardianship, so they have to go through a governmental agency. In that sense, Verónica Domínguez reports in 2019 that the A.C. receives a monthly subsidy for each resident from the DIF of the state of Chihuahua.

Yorch, one of the most recognized artists in Ciudad Juarez, is part of the Rezizte Collective, formed in 2003, which brings together a large number of urban artists in the city. The collective’s work focuses on border identities and resistance to the socio-political problems of the region.

The bakery functions as an art gallery and has promoted projects with several artists to present their work and to intervene publicly in the surrounding area. Since the bakery opened, it has become an important socio-cultural reference point, serving as a meeting place not only for locals, but also for visitors seeking a better understanding of the artistic dynamics of the city.

The Rezizte Bakery has shown solidarity with the migrant community through donations, the creation of murals in support of migrants, and by being a safe center for anyone from the border community.

The initiative works with solidarity labor. Julio explains that it is not a matter of donations but of exchanging things: you leave what you do not need so that someone else can use it. In this sense, the project’s articulation axes are: care for the environment by reusing and not generating garbage; solidarity economy, where work is based on horizontality and reciprocity; and material detachment, which encourages the circulation of things.

Although it is centered in Manuel Bernal’s store, right now the “gratis tienditas” have been launched to replicate the model on a small scale throughout the city. At least 18 other stores have been registered based on the same principle. It is worth mentioning that these tienditas are not officially affiliated with the Gratis Tienda, and only follow the model.

It offers a large number of free things that can serve in the way of migrants.