Border Report Live

The author of a new book on family separation and migration during the first Trump administration spoke with dozens of families and children from Latin America who spent months apart due to U.S. immigration policies.
In the latest episode of Border Report Live, Gabrielle Oliveira, author of “Now We Are Here — Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life” spoke with South Texas correspondent Sandra Sanchez about how she located the 16 families and 30 children that she followed and documented from 2018 through 2021 after they crossed the U.S. border.
The families came from Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and the children ranged in ages from four months to 18.
Oliveira says their parents often expressed guilt over putting their children through arduous journeys north to cross the border into the United States. Some waited for months south of the border under the Migrant Protection Protocols policy, also known as remain in Mexico, which President Donald Trump implemented during his first term.

The Border Report team this week said goodbye to not one but two correspondents — Salvador Rivera and Julian Resendiz.
Both joined host Rudy Mireles throughout the week to look back on the past six or seven years and some of the work that put them on the frontlines of the immigration debate.
Border Report launched in the summer of 2019. Salvador joined the team to help cover the vast San Diego-Tijuana region in 2020, not long after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic and how it affected various aspects the border dominated the news cycle at the turn of the decade. On Friday, Salvador recalled the collaboration between Mexican and U.S. officials to help vaccinate workers by busing them from Tijuana into San Diego and back.

The Trump administration recently ordered the state of California to revoke the commercial driver’s licenses of thousands of immigrants, and there’s no telling when or if they’ll get them back.
According to CalMatters, multiple lawsuits have been filed to restore those trucking licenses, but none have been successful.
Adam Echelman, of CalMatters, reported that as many as 61,000 California truck drivers could loose lose their licenses in the coming years as a result of the federal actions.
Echelman appeared on Border Report Live on Thursday. He outlined some of the policies that are aimed at getting  many immigrant workers off U.S. roads and some that ban what he described as an entire class of immigrants from getting commercial driver’s licenses.

The Border Report correspondents join host Rudy Mireles to discuss some of the topics they’ve covered in the past several years.
Border Report launched in the summer of 2019. San Diego correspondent Salvador Rivera, joined the team in early 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold on the nation.
Along with El Paso correspondent Julian Resendiz and South Texas Sandra Sanchez, the three correspondents highlight some of the stories that stood out to them.

Two South Texas lawmakers on Tuesday toured a federal detention facility in this border town where pregnant migrant teens are being sent, some as young as 13.
U.S. Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Joaquin Castro, both Democrats, spent about an hour inside the facility, which is located downtown and across from San Benito’s museum.
After the tour, Gonzalez said they wanted to make sure the pregnant teens are getting the medical care they need and that there are facilities on site to help them.
“That they have the minimum medical standards of an American facility to care for pregnant women and we want to look after American citizens that are here now, and people with legal status that are here or in other facilities being detained,” said Gonzalez, who represents this congressional district. “We’re especially concerned with American citizens and assuring that they have the care that they deserve under the Constitution.”

As the city of El Paso, Texas expands the issues of immigration and cartel violence grow with it.
El Paso correspondent Julian Resendiz looks back at the city he has covered for Border Report for nearly a decade.
As he moves on in his journey, he examines the biggest stories that have impacted El Paso, Juarez and the surrounding communities that straddle two nations separated by a river.

An inspection of the nation’s largest immigration detention facility, located in West Texas, has found dozens of violations of national standards, while there are reports that the United States is halting buying more warehouses nationwide to convert into detention facilities.
In this episode of Border Report Live, host Sandra Sanchez discusses her reporting on a detention facility located in San Benito, Texas, where pregnant immigrant youth are being sent and where adequate care is reportedly not available.
Along during this Holy Week, we show video from Mount Cristo Rey, in Sunland Park, New Mexico, where pilgrims are streaming up and down the mountain, making a 2.3-mile climb to the 29-foot-tall limestone statue during this holiest of Christian holidays.
The statue overlooks Mexico, New Mexico and El Paso, Texas.

Thousands of Mexicans are traveling to U.S. cities along the Southwest border to enjoy the beach, shop, and visit with relatives and friends during this Holy Week, known as Semana Santa, prior to the Easter holiday.
In many parts of the border, many Americans travel south to Mexico during Holy Week.
In this episode of Border Report Live, El Paso correspondent Julian Resendiz and host Rudy Mireles discuss how as many a 1 million folks are expected to head south of the border, as well as the safety precautions they need to take, especially as the State Department has put several Mexican states on its Do Not Travel list because it says it’s too dangerous.
The state of Chihuahua, south of West Texas and New Mexico, is a Level 3 destination and the State Department urges Americans to “reconsider” travel there.