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The economic cost of waiting at the border in limbo

Aug 3, 2023
Those waiting on an asylum request often can't move forward with a job, housing or education.
Asylum seekers wait at the pedestrian crossing at the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana. Some spend weeks, months or longer at or near the border, hoping to be granted asylum.
Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images

What it's like returning to China's zero-COVID bubble

Nov 17, 2022
China is simplifying some of the rules to enter its zero-COVID bubble, but many hurdles remain.
Passengers from Pak's flight from Toronto in November are welcomed by staff at Shanghai's Pudong airport in hazmat suits.
Jennifer Pak/Marketplace

Locked out of China by its zero-COVID policy, their lives changed course

Oct 5, 2022
China’s borders shut in March 2020 to contain COVID-19. It's been rough for people who made a life in China but were forced to leave.
China's rigorous COVID restrictions have made it difficult for some residents to return. Above, a woman at Hong Kong International Airport makes her way to hotel quarantine on Sept. 23.
Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images

Mexican border town residents resilient despite pandemic isolation

Nov 23, 2021
When the border closed between Big Bend National Park and Boquillas in 2020, it separated residents from their main source of income.
Pre-pandemic, thousands of tourists crossed through the Boquillas port of entry each year. The port connecting Boquillas to Big Bend National Park in Texas closed in March 2020 but reopened on Nov. 17.
Annie Rosenthal/Marfa Public Radio

“Transmigrante” traffic may boost economy of Texas border town

Apr 6, 2021
Central Americans who make a living towing secondhand goods over the U.S.-Mexico border have a new crossing point at Presidio.
Since late March, the Presidio-Ojinaga port of entry has been open to transmigrantes, Central American drivers who travel through Mexico to their home countries to sell secondhand goods purchased in the United States.
Carlos Morales/Marfa Public Radio

For some U.S.-Canadian couples, the pandemic has meant unwanted separation

Sep 29, 2020
Travel restrictions have resulted in some couples having to choose between keeping jobs and seeing loved ones.
Canadians can still fly to the U.S. But to do so could mean risking one's health or job.
Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

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Border life: An apartment in Mexico, a job in the U.S.

Feb 25, 2019
From Tijuana to Matamoros, people work in the U.S. for higher wages but live in Mexico for cheaper rent.
 It’s hard to know exactly how many people live in Mexico and work in the U.S. but thousands of people cross in both directions every day in Laredo, Texas.
Filipa Rodrigues/Marketplace

Does the Northern Ireland border stand in the way of Brexit?

Feb 8, 2019
Ireland and the EU say the border needs to remain open or paramilitary violence will resume. Brexiteers say that's nonsense.
Activists attend a demonstration by the anit-Brexit campaign group Border Communities Against Brexit in Newry, Northern Ireland, on Jan. 26.
Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

Border life: They're fighting a wall that would divide their land

Feb 4, 2019
Fred Cavazos and Rey Anzaldua say a planned expansion of a South Texas wall would hurt their livelihood and is disruptive to their family history.
Rey Anzaldua, 73, sits in his cousin Fred’s dining room on Thursday, Jan. 31 2019, mulling over documents the federal government has sent the family seeking permission to build a wall on their land. He says the family will never sign over the rights and the government will have to take the land through eminent domain if a wall is going to be built on their property.
Filipa Rodrigues/Marketplace