Boulder nurse sets out for Tijuana to help Central American migrants

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A longtime Boulder nurse is traveling to Tijuana, Mexico, on Saturday to help Central American migrants who have taken shelter in the border city after trekking through Mexico earlier this year to claim asylum in the United States.

Beverly Lyne, a registered nurse since 1986, said is going on her own but is meeting up with San Diego, Calif.-based nonprofit Border Angels.

"I have done disaster relief in Nicaragua, Haiti and Uganda," Lyne said. "I know how chaotic it can be, some of the systems that need to be in place to meet primary health care needs."

Lyne, who retired as the director of the nursing program at Colorado Northwestern Community College in Craig, said she has a master's degree in community health nursing and began traveling to crisis areas beginning in 1988 with a journey to Nicaragua, then engaged in civil war.

She said she also helped establish a clinic during civil war in Uganda that has since evolved into a birthing center. She treated patients in Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake.

"My focus is usually on populations or communities," she said. "One of the things I'll be able to help with is looking at the systems in place and see how we can use rotating volunteers to come down until the initial crisis is over."

A mix of emotions

Border Angels founder Enrique Morones said his organization is making its third so-called "caravan of love" trip to Tijuana. The organization, among other activities, makes trips to desert areas along the border to leave water jugs on the U.S. side of the border.

Although migrants will often travel in groups for safety, a large caravan, made up primarily of several thousand people from Honduras, became a political flash point in the run up to the midterm elections as its members made a slow trudge through Mexico. President Donald Trump cast the caravan as an invasion of people attempting to take advantage of the U.S. immigration system.

Members of the caravan arrived in Tijuana in mid-November and were housed at a sports stadium, which this week was closed as a shelter. Frustrated by a bottleneck at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, some migrants have opted to enter the United States illegally. Some have jumped into the Pacific Ocean and tried to swim north, and in late November U.S. Customs and Border Protection fired tear gas at hundreds of migrants trying to run toward a border crossing.

U.S. inspectors at the main border crossing in San Diego are processing up to about 100 asylum claims a day. Of the more than 6,100 migrants staying last week in a temporary shelter run by the city of Tijuana, 3,936 were men, 1,147 were women, and 1,068 were children.

Border Angels volunteer Tanya Benitez said she has encountered a mix of emotions during her recent trips to Tijuana to bring supplies to migrants. Tension exists, Benitez said, between the migrants and locals, including the police, but many of the migrants remain hopeful.

"A lot of the people seem very happy and cheerful just to be there and see people trying to help them," she said. "It's very sad just to see the kinds of conditions they are living in and the kinds of things they have to go through on a daily basis."

She said that many of the migrants are reluctant to share their stories in great detail, but most of them have fled violence in their home countries.

"They say they were beat up on the street because they didn't want to join a gang," she said. "Their mom's life was threatened or their kids' lives were threatened. It's pretty much the gang violence."

'No choice other than survival'

James Cordero is the advanced water drop coordinator for Border Angels, said he recently traveled to Tijuana to deliver supplies to migrants who are stuck in a limbo of sorts as they wait for a chance to apply for asylum. The migrants are being prevented from reaching a port of entry, which is a requirement for them to claim asylum, he said.

"My impression is the Mexican government is working with the U.S. government to stall these people out and make it as hard as possible for them," Cordero said. "While it looks like they are showing they are doing something, they are just making things a lot harder for them in hopes they will turn around and return to where they came from."

He said that he has heard through various channels that as many as 1,000 people have given up and gone home. Some have also reportedly looked for work in Mexico and been tricked into signing self-deportation forms when they believed they were filling out job applications.

Concern exists, he said, that out of desperation some people will become drug mules for cartels operating in the region as a way to cross the border.

"People who have nothing and they have no choice other than survival, other than that, it's their last option," he said. "A lot of people will take it. Because it's an option."

'That person will know they are not being forgotten'

Lyne said she expects to see respiratory disease -- coughs, sore throats, fevers -- and diarrhea from drinking unhygienic water when she arrives at the shelter, but also a lack of essential medicine.

"I'm concerned about how chronic diseases are being managed," she said. "For example, people with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes -- where are they getting their insulin and pills. The folks with high blood pressure -- where are they getting their medication? They aren't."

She added that its difficult to know what she will find once she arrives.

"Nurses like to control things," she said. "We like to have everything organized in a neat box, but I don't know what I'm going to find. Part of what I'm anticipating is meeting with the folks there and seeing how I can be used and then going to work."

Lyne said she will be gone about a week and depending on whether she has a skill set that is needed, she might return. At the very least, she said she will be able to offer consolation and help to new mothers, children and the elderly people who are suffering.

"That person will know they are not being forgotten," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

John Bear: 303-473-1355, [email protected] or twitter.com/johnbearwithme

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