Genesy, 5, getting ready to leave the Benito Juarez shelter. Tijuana, Mexico.
The current bottleneck at the border in Tijuana (a city that is home to many migrants from past waves of asylum seekers, including thousands of Haitians displaced by hurricanes and earthquakes) is the result of the Trump administration’s limits on asylum applications at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. Officials are only letting between 40 and 100 people cross daily; as recently as six months ago in some cases, migrants who made the same journey would not face a delay. Due to what the Trump administration calls “metering,” officials are now telling asylum applicants to wait for days and sometimes months. It was a process that began with the Obama administration in 2016 that Trump has turned into standard practice.
- Bridget Read, "Where the Border Ends, Vogue, December 7, 2018
Josue, 6, from Colon, Honduras, playing before leaving the Benito Juarez shelter. Tijuana, Mexico.
Diria, 24, from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, at the Barretal shelter. Tijuana, Mexico.
Jocelyn, 21, packing up to leave the Benito Juarez shelter. Tijuana, Mexico.
Clothing hanging in the Benito Juarez shelter. Tijuana, Mexico.
Alexis, 5, with his mother, Jackelin, 26, from Honduras, were relocated to Barretal shelter. Tijuana, Mexico.
Edwin, 27, from Colon, Honduras at Barretal shelter. Tijuana, Mexico.
Migrants trying to jump the US-Mexico wall at Tijuana beach. Tijuana, Mexico.
Migrants entering the US illegally, over the wall at Tijuana beach. Tijuana, Mexico.
Sofia, 22, and her cousin, Dannel, waiting to enter the US illegally, over the wall at Tijuana beach. Tijuana, Mexico.
The photographs that Susan Meiselas has taken of asylum seekers in Tijuana for Vogue capture an ecosystem rather than an imaginary line. With the help of journalist Sarah Kinosian, Meiselas began a week after Border Patrol deployed tear gas at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and photographed the temporary inhabitants of the Benito Juarez Sports Complex—where migrants were first placed before a combination of flooding and overcrowding made it uninhabitable—and at the next shelter, some 12 miles away in a former concert hall called El Barretal. Faced with deplorable conditions, and Tijuana’s already strained resources in question, thanks to a newly elected Mexican president, some asylum seekers gave up their dreams of making it to America, choosing instead to be deported back to the violence and lack of opportunity they had fled in their home countries; others began the process of resettling in Mexico. Some took their chances and crossed into California under the cover of darkness—in the spaces between pylons, over fences, and where the wall ends on the moonlit beach and the border blurs.
- Bridget Read, "Where the Border Ends, Vogue, December 7, 2018
The wall dividing the US and Mexico at Freedom Park, Tijuana beach. Tijuana, Mexico.