The people of New Orleans have demonstrated strength, resilience, and a commitment to caring for one another in the face of catastrophe time and again. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina and the levee breach left 80% of the city underwater and 1,833 people dead. In the spring of 2020, almost 15 years after the storm, the pandemic rendered New Orleans a hotspot, leaving families and community members to deal with death, unemployment, and uncertainty.
Karen came to the United States in 2019, with her 9 year old daughter. But after her daughter returned to Guatemala, immigration enforcement officials approached and detained Karen, holding her in New Jersey's Elizabeth Detention Center. Today, she is fighting her deportation, while working to support herself in New York.
AFSC's Pedro Rios reports from the U.S. – Mexico border in Tijuana.
At the start of the pandemic, the Trump administration closed the southern border to asylum seekers, deporting many back to dangerous conditions—against the advice of public health experts who found there was no public health justification for the decision.