passports or long-term visas are able to get an education in Texas. They live in Juárez, but as holders of U.S. For seven of the 21 members of the Bowie cheer team who cross the border from Juárez to El Paso every day, this is just a logistical adjustment. 11, 2001, when crossings slowed to a trickle. In the past year, students say, a series of migrant caravans from Central America have clogged the already congested crossing points, leading to wait times reminiscent of the months after Sept. Known to locals as La Bowie, this historic school has deep roots in the debate over immigration. Another practically empties into Bowie (pronounced Boo-ey) High School. One runs right from the vendor-filled sidewalks of Juárez into El Paso’s main shopping street. This combination is passable via four traffic-clogged bridges. and Mexico, is only a stream here, but it’s reinforced with an 18-foot metal wall and multi-lane freeway. The Rio Grande, which marks the boundary between the U.S. At ground level, though, an increasingly militarized border divides them. El Paso, with its quiet suburbs, and Juárez, with its lively plazas, have a combined population of 2.5 million people, many of whom lead lives that straddle both sides. From a bird’s eye view, the two meld together seamlessly. By population, it’s the second-largest urban area on the U.S.-Mexico border, after San Diego and Tijuana, but it’s arguably the most tightly connected part of the 2,000-mile boundary. Perhaps no other two cities represent the overlap of nations like El Paso and Juárez. Many of its students are American citizens who cross the border from Mexico each day to attend school. The school is a stone's throw from the border wall and has deep roots in the immigration debate. and Mexico to shop, work, visit family and get an education.Īna Castañeda and Lluvia Rodriguez are cheerleaders at Bowie High School in El Paso. Ashley is just one student amid the daily back and forth of people crossing between the U.S. Annually, more than $80 billion in international trade moves across this part of the border and into Texas. On average, more than 35,000 passenger vehicles make this northbound journey into El Paso each day, along with nearly 20,000 pedestrians. plans to add 450 miles of border wall this year, life between Mexico and the U.S. Most of these cross-border students, known as transfronterizos, attend elementary and high school. border each day for school, not just into Texas, but also California, New Mexico and Arizona. An estimated 40,000 children cross the U.S. A stream of children with backpacks, earbuds in, hands shoved in pockets, weave between traffic and funnel onto a pedestrian walkway.Įvery day, Ashley makes this crossing to get to high school. Vendors hawk newspapers and burritos to commuters bound for El Paso, who can wait three or four hours to cross the bridge each morning. A yellow mist settles across a motionless line of cars that seems to stretch from the horizon to the border checkpoint. ![]() Photo editing by Emily Kassie and Mallory BenedictĪlthough the days are still warm, dawn in the desert hovers around 30 degrees. This story was published in partnership with National Geographic. Photographer Sara Naomi Lewkowicz spent nearly a year with the cheerleaders of Bowie High School, chronicling their lives in El Paso and in Juárez.
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