Since 2019, a crisis has been unfolding directly across the U.S.-Mexico border from Brownsville. About 2,000 refugees, largely from Central America, have been stranded in a riverside encampment, wholly dependent on humanitarian groups for food and other basic needs. Feeding them before COVID-19 was a daunting task for the aid groups, most of which are based in the United States. The pandemic has made food delivery considerably more complicated.
The refugees had begun assembling in Matamoros, a city of about 550,000, in response to the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a Trump administration policy unveiled in January 2019 that requires asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico until their cases are processed.
