Visiting the Migrant Camp at the San Diego-Tijuana Border

SAN DIEGO — At California’s southern border, two parallel, towering fences stretch for miles, their reddish steel beams cutting through rugged hillsides thick with tall stocks of yellow wildflowers and marking where Mexico ends and the United States begins.

Around 10 days ago, as the end of a pandemic-era expulsion policy known as Title 42 approached, a migrant camp sprung up between the two border walls, with hundreds of people hoping to be allowed into the United States. I traveled to San Diego and Tijuana last week to report on the sprawling and diverse camp, its existence speaking of America’s shifting immigration policies as well as the desperation of migrants from across the world who are searching for better opportunities.

“There’s no other choice,” said Azamat Alin, 41, who spent at least $10,000 on a long journey from Kazakhstan to Brazil, and then through Central America to Mexico.

Alin had set out seeking financial opportunity and political freedom in the United States. He hadn’t expected to spend several nights in a migrant camp without shelter or sanitation. When I spoke to him through the metal bars of the border wall, he was wearing a plastic bag on his head to keep warm and had just spent his last few dollars on a box of Little Caesars pizza that a Tijuana food delivery driver sold him through the wall.

But he still would have made the journey, he said, had he known that the conditions would be this grim.

“Everyone is looking at the arrivals at the border, but the root of the problem lies in push factors inside countries of origin that are going to persist,” Justin Gest, a political scientist at George Mason University who studies immigration, told my colleague Miriam Jordan. “When crises occur, they generate northbound flows.”

At the border between San Diego and Tijuana, roughly 1,000 people jumped the first barrier separating the cities last week and then remained stuck behind another wall, as they awaited processing by U.S. officials. The area between the two border walls is technically on U.S. soil but is considered a sort of neutral zone. A Colombian man in the camp told me that he had paid $1,500 to smugglers who sawed a hole in the fence on the Mexico side for him, his partner and his toddler to climb through.

Reporters aren’t able to enter the camp, but we crowded on the San Diego side to speak to migrants through the wall. I saw hundreds of families there, huddled together for warmth under Mylar blankets, sharing protein bars and bottled water. Some had fashioned tents out of tarps and black plastic garbage bags.

A mother brushed her daughter’s long brown hair. A father chased his giggling toddler through the trash-strewn patch of dirt.

I had never observed such a diverse group of people in one place, with migrants from Angola, Russia, Guinea, Venezuela, Turkey, Pakistan and dozens of other countries. They wore styles and clothing from all over the world: straw sun hats, hijabs, tank tops, ponchos and kofias.

The meager supply of food and water birthed new businesses — delivery drivers on the Mexico side sold fried chicken, loaves of bread and bottles of Coke through the wall — as well as a striking system of order within the camp.

As aid workers distributed toilet paper, bags of clementines, water bottles and packages of toothbrushes, migrants from various regions designated leaders to receive and distribute the supplies for their groups.

The Africans in the camp — from Ghana, Somalia, Kenya, Guinea, Nigeria — selected a tall Somali man, who communicated with aid groups about the number of sanitary pads and blankets they needed that day. The Colombians had their own leader; so did the Afghans, the Turkish and the Haitians.

The system emerged organically as migrants sought to ease tensions among groups fighting over limited resources, according to Adriana Jasso, a volunteer with American Friends Service Committee.

“People are cold, hungry, desperate, destitute, nervous,” she told me. “It’s a dire situation, to say the least.”

Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Jennifer Russell:

“Living in the Bay Area means access to our wonderful East Bay Regional Parks. They are particularly awesome in spring with wildflowers, newts, luscious green hills, trails for every skill level, soaring birds, expansive views, rushing creeks and so much more. My favorites are Briones, Tilden and Castle Rock.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

And before you go, some good news

The City Nature Challenge is an annual contest that calls on people worldwide to take and submit photos of plants, animals and insects in their backyards and neighborhoods.

Originally started in 2016 by the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the contest is intended to help people connect with nature while also documenting and celebrating biodiversity.