Frontera Federation April Newsletter

In this Issue: 

• Fighting Back as Texas Takes Aim at Due Process
• Ana Guardiola Honors Those Killed Crossing the U.S.-Mexico Border
• Mexico At a Crossroads
• Frontera Federation Opposes Rodney Scott Nomination as CBP Commissioner 
• Upcoming Events 

Dear colleagues and supporters: 

We are writing to share the first of many Frontera Federation monthly newsletters, featuring a few updates about the work Federation members or partners have been engaged in. They are intended to inspire narrative change and collaboration, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you think there’s somehow we can support you or some way you’d like to support us. 

Like all of our work, the updates featured below incorporate our fundamental mission, which is to advocate for community health and safety, regardless of immigration status. Based in Eagle Pass, Texas, the Frontera Federation is a non-profit dedicated to upholding human rights and building resilient communities along both sides of the border in the face of hyper-militarization in both the United States and Mexico. 

This newsletter features work from our core staff. Next month’s newsletter will feature teachers at the border. If you are a teacher at the border and you’d like to share more with us about how your work has been impacted, please reach out to us. 

Fighting Back as Texas Takes Aim at Due Process

Frontera Federation Co-director Amerika Garcia Grewal traveled to Austin the week of April 14th. In collaboration with the ACLU of Texas, she engaged with Texas State House Representatives and their staff from border counties and the staff of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. The focus of these meetings was to advocate against proposed state constitutional amendments with significant implications.

These amendments, if enacted, would mandate that judges, regardless of their expertise in immigration law, deny bail to individuals accused of crimes who are alleged to be non-citizens. This could result in the indefinite detention of individuals who have not been convicted, raising serious concerns about due process and the presumption of innocence for all residents of Texas.

Co Director Garcia Grewal also addressed the ongoing impact of Operation Lone Star. She highlighted the documented instances of racial profiling and the reported inhumane detention conditions faced by both Texans and migrants under this operation. She emphasized that codifying such practices into law would expand due process violations throughout the state, with a disproportionate impact on border communities, where the majority of residents identify as Latinx or Hispanic.

Furthermore, Co Director Garcia Grewal underscored the substantial financial burden of Operation Lone Star on Texas taxpayers, alongside the tragic consequences of reckless state police pursuits associated with the operation, which have resulted in over 100 fatalities and increased financial costs related to traffic enforcement.

To further disseminate these critical concerns, Co Director Garcia Grewal also met with journalists representing national, state, and local news outlets. She conveyed the multifaceted negative impacts of border over-militarization, including the diversion of essential resources from border communities, the erosion of freedoms for individuals nationwide, and the significant financial strain on Texas taxpayers.

Ana Guardiola Honors Those Killed Crossing the U.S.-Mexico Border

Ana Guardiola heals everyone, whether you’re a Border Patrol agent or a refugee, an entire family, a walk in. She was born in Eagle Pass, Texas, to Mexican parents; she grew up in Gonzales; and she attended nursing school in Arlington.

“I only ask them ‘what hurts’? I don’t ask them for their immigration status, Ana said. 

Before joining the Frontera Federation, she felt she didn’t know much about US immigration policy or the border. But when she began volunteering for Operation ID, where volunteers help to identify human remains found on the US-side of the US-Mexico border, everything changed. 

“I’ve seen people who’ve passed away but not people who have passed like that,” Ana said. 

Ana now applies forensic training to help identify individuals who have lost their lives during migration—a solemn reminder of the urgent need for dignity and justice in immigration policy. Ana’s collaborative spirit and advocacy for equitable access to healthcare and resources reflect the Frontera Federation’s mission to foster sustainable, community-driven solutions to regional challenges.

She brought Operation ID workers to talk to her Eagle Pass women’s empowerment group, helping members of the community understand the human impact of U.S. border deterrence policies. 

Since 1994, tens of thousands of people have been killed on the U.S. side of the border alone as they sought to reunify with their families, find dignified work, flee torture and persecution, and improve the quality of life for themselves and their families. Crossing the border should not be punished by death, and it should not be punished at all. 

Recognizing that systemic barriers require collective solutions, Ana joined the Frontera Federation, a coalition working to advance health equity, strengthen community resilience, combat over-policing, fight for the right to move, and address the complex impacts of underinvestment in border regions. 

After decades of begging politicians far away from the border to do something to stop the loss of human life, we are now laser-focused on working in our local communities to drive the change we so desperately need. That is especially the case this year, as the Trump administration has shut down so many state-recognized pathways to cross the border, meaning even more people will be funnelled to more remote and dangerous crossings. 

Ana plans to work on building out healthcare networks on both sides of the border and continuing her work to sensibilize the community around deadly border deterrence.  

A warm welcome to Ana! 

Mexico At a Crossroads

Over the years, the scapegoating and xenophobic fears that have long plagued the United States have slowly crept across to Mexico. Where once one spoke of “hermano migrante,” U.S. and Mexican policies trapping displaced people in Mexico combined with often valid concerns for resource shortages have caused some people in Mexico to blame migrants for insecurity rather than organize to demand justice from both governments. 

Now we are working in coalition with local advocates to demand the government recognize and defend the rights of all people, regardless of their nationality.  

Since 2019, the U.S. and Mexico have worked together under both Trump and Biden, Sheinbaum and AMLO, to send hundreds of thousands of non-Mexican asylum seekers, including tens of thousands of children, to northern Mexico border cities, despite the known security risks associated with doing so. Unsurprisingly, transnational criminal groups, which enjoy collaboration by Mexican police, National Guard soldiers, and immigration officials, seized the opportunity to create multiple transnational kidnapping rings – kidnapping displaced people for ransom and extorting their U.S. family members in dollars. The market has grown to massive proportions, further endangering Mexicans and non-Mexicans alike.

Despite repeated warnings from advocates about the growing extortion market in Mexico – particularly at the hands of Mexican government officials in the interior of the country – the Biden administration implemented a geofenced digital metering system, which, combined with Mexico’s forced relocation program, compelled non-Mexican asylum seekers to remain in Mexico in parts of the country further and further back from the U.S.-Mexico border. As a result, kidnapping rings spread to southern Mexico, and makeshift refugee camps began to spread in Mexico City, which advocates began calling “the third border.” 

Most recently, the United States abruptly ended CBP One, its digital metering system, stranding hundreds of thousands of people in Mexico. And while President Sheinbaum has agreed to continue accepting unlawful deportations of non-Mexicans to Mexico, as well as to continue forcibly displacing them to the far south of the country in a policy intended to exhaust refugees into submission, she has failed to provide commensurate support to those people who must now be integrated. Meanwhile, in Mexico City, residents have organized against the city government’s construction of a desperately needed new migrant shelter, citing racist and xenophobic tropes and demanding (rightly) that the city be more responsive to the water scarcity they face. This comes as the city and federal governments have razed refugee camps, leaving people with no where to go.

Frontera Federation Co-director Ari Sawyer is working to help lead a coalition of activists, some of whom are outside of the traditional migrant rights space, in the Capitol advocating for the rights of migrants and demanding the local and federal government comply with the responsibility it has to regularize the status of the migrants it has helped to trap here, to allow them to work, and to ensure they have access to the rights enshrined by the Mexican Constitution, including the right to healthcare and education. 

And we will continue to advocate against the Mexican government’s deadly collaboration with the United States to deny people protection and enrich the cartels they claim they hope to defeat. 

Militarized and police-focused immigration policies have deep- and far-reaching impacts on communities well into the interior of both the United States and Mexico, but if we work together and against hateful policies, we can ensure all community members have access to the quality of life they deserve, no matter where they are from.

Frontera Federation Opposes Rodney Scott Nomination as CBP Commissioner 

Like many of our colleagues, we remember all too well the case of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, who was beaten and tased to death by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials who later worked to cover up their crimes. Then-acting chief of the Border Patrol San Diego Rodney Scott led the cover-up unit which destroyed video evidence, altered records and used his position to acquire and hide Anastasio’s medical records. Subsequently promoted to Border Patrol chief, Scott went on to publicly used a rape euphemism to threaten a former Border Patrol agent and rape survivor fighting to defend the Rojas Hernandez family in an international court as part of their legal team. 

Scott also oversaw the implementation of “Prevention Through Deterrence” in the San Diego sector and immediate sharp increase in migrant deaths as a result. The set of policies, still used today, are designed to weaponize the harsh border terrain and, by negligence and design, kill border crossers funneled into more remote and dangerous parts of the border. 

Finally, lest anyone escape his tenure alive, Scott has also presided over Border Patrol suicides as the leading cause of death among agents. While Scott has alternatively blamed migrants and Democrats for those deaths, many of the suicides are related to moral injury agents experience when they are ordered to carry out border deterrence policies that do not align with their morals and values, like family separation, Remain in Mexico, Title 42 expulsions, massive overcrowding in inhumane conditions at Border Patrol temporary facilities, and the detention of children in similarly inhumane conditions. 

The high rates of suicides among Border Patrol – the highest of any law enforcement in the United States – represent a serious public health concern that the Frontera Federation seeks to address at the root. Border Patrol agents are often border-born and raised, and they make up the fabric of mixed-nationality border communities.
If members of Congress really wish to end the unnecessary loss of life among both border crossers and community members, including Texas National Guard soldiers, they will vote against the nomination of the disgraced Rodney Scott, divest from deterrence, and invest in regular pathways to migrate and humanitarian responses to humanitarian needs at the border. 

Upcoming Events: 

All are welcome to a meaningful Passover Seder in Shelby Park on Saturday, April 26th, at 5:30 PM! Join Never Again Austin, Border Vigil members, Frontera Federation leaders, and regional community members for an evening of reflection, storytelling, and shared tradition as we explore themes of liberation and justice. This cross-cultural collaboration will include a catered meal, a bilingual Haggadah, and opportunities for connection. Please RSVP at bit.ly/25bordervigilseder to ensure we can accommodate all attendees. We look forward to sharing this special evening with you.

May Day May 1, 2025 is the next big day of action. What are you concerned about? There’s an event for you: https://lawdayofaction.org/ A Nationwide Stand for the Rule of Lawhttps://maydaystrong.org/ Commit to protecting all the people who make up the places we call home. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

To join us, write to connect@fronterafederation.org or fill out the application form here.