In US-Mexico border towns, pandemic hits businesses especially hard

With pandemic border restrictions stretching on, the U.S. side of the boundary in Nogales, Arizona, feels like a ghost town. Normally, businesses here rely heavily on shoppers from Mexico. Now a sales drought persists, even while the harshest effects were felt in the just-finished holiday season.

“This is when we make all of our money,” says Isabel Navarro, owner of a clothing and trinket business here, just a block away from a pedestrian border crossing. 

Regular foot traffic from Mexican shoppers has come to a near standstill. As those restrictions run until at least Jan 21, economies across the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border are reeling.

“Border economies are interdependent,” explains Irasema Coronado, director of the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. “There are many businesses on the U.S. side of the border that rely and thrive on Mexican shoppers. … Likewise, there are businesses in Mexico that rely on U.S. shoppers to come and buy.”

“I had four shops, I had to close two already. And if things don’t get better, I will have to close another,” Ms. Navarro says.

Nogales, Ariz.

The deafening silence seems to wash over Isabel Navarro as she watches the empty aisles of the clothing and trinket store she’s owned for the past 11 years.

It’s among dozens of businesses selling low-priced clothing, shoes, toys, perfumes, and a vast array of products that make up the once-bustling downtown of Nogales, Arizona.

Ms. Navarro’s shop, Mis Divinas, sits just a block away from a pedestrian crossing connecting the small 20,000-population border town to its sprawling 200,000-population sister city of Nogales, Mexico. 

Every year, business owners like Ms. Navarro wait in anticipation for crowds of Mexican families and workers touting their aguinaldos, end-of-year bonuses, to flood over the border and through their doors.

But as border closures from the beginning of the pandemic stretch on, the U.S. side feels more like a ghost town. The challenge persists into the new year, even while the harshest effects were felt in the just-finished holiday season.

“This is when we make all of our money,” Ms. Navarro says in the days leading up to Christmas. “But this year, their aguinaldo isn’t going to be spent here. It’s going to stay in Mexico.”

Peering out to an empty street, she adds, “It looks very sad.”

The U.S., Mexico, and Canada imposed restrictions on land border crossings in March to stop the spread of the virus. Eight months later, land ports on the Mexico border are open for essential activities like work and medical appointments, and to U.S. citizens and green card holders.

But regular foot traffic from Mexican shoppers vital to businesses on the U.S. side of the border has come to a near standstill. As those restrictions run until at least Jan. 21, economies across the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border have crumbled.

“Border economies are interdependent,” explains Irasema Coronado, director of the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University. “There are many businesses on the U.S. side of the border that rely and thrive on Mexican shoppers. … Likewise, there are businesses in Mexico that rely on U.S. shoppers to come and buy.” 

Megan Janetsky

Once packed to the brim during the week before Christmas, downtown Nogales, Arizona, sits empty on Dec. 19, 2020, due to border restrictions.

Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, describes the extended closures as an “early stay-at-home order that never went away.”

“It’s partially the closure of the border, but also a result of the COVID recession everyone is facing,” Mr. Wilson says. “These communities are getting a double dose of what communities across Mexico and the United States are facing.”

Small-business owners like Ms. Navarro were left reeling. 

Ms. Navarro, born on the Mexican side of Nogales, once crossed with her family to do holiday shopping in stores like the one she currently runs. Now a permanent resident in the U.S., she opened Mis Divinas in downtown Nogales in 2009 and slowly built her business up to four locations.

In the pandemic, she says she lost at least 90% of her customers. Other business owners and employees say the number is closer to 99%.

Aisles of sparkle-studded jackets, hair baubles, bed sets, strollers, bows, and plastic toys lie dormant. Once, she explains, the place was so full she wouldn’t have been able to walk. Now they’re fortunate if 10 people a day come through.

Megan Janetsky

Two shoppers wander through a massive clothing, household items, and trinket shop left largely empty by ongoing U.S.-Mexico border closures in Nogales, Arizona, on Dec. 19, 2020.

“I had four shops, I had to close two already. And if things don’t get better, I will have to close another,” she explains. “I feel sad, really sad. Because it was a lot of work to build it … then everything began to collapse.”

Before the pandemic, an estimated 350 million people would cross through ports along the U.S.-Mexico border by foot or vehicle every year. 

In April 2020, the first full month of closures, crossings by foot, car, and bus in Nogales fell to just a fifth of what they were in April 2019, data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics shows.

The impact has been felt up and down the border in other sister cities like El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua; and San Diego, California, and Tijuana in the Mexican state of Baja California.

One report by the Baker Institute for Public Policy concluded that counties along the Texas-Mexico border had lost nearly $4.9 billion in economic activity between March and November 2020 due to COVID-19 border closures. 

The retail sector in those regions has lost approximately $2 billion in eight months, and local governments have lost around $242.6 million in sales tax revenue alone, according to the report.

Dr. Coronado grew up on the Arizona side of Nogales and says she remembers watching her mother write a shopping list for Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales in the Mexican state of Sonora every week. 

“A good binational shopper knows, ‘I can buy this in the U.S., I can buy that in Mexico, and I live better by using both economies,’” she says. 

Megan Janetsky

A barbed wire-lined barrier separates the sister cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales in the Mexican state of Sonora, on Dec. 19, 2020.

Both sides of the border survive off one another, she says, and when they’re cut off, both sides wither. She worries that such economies may never fully recover.

Peter Han, the owner of a sportswear shop down the street from Ms. Navarro, wonders the same.

Perched behind his register, he leans back in his chair with a checkered fedora on his head. 

He’s owned the store for 30 years, but says he left his shop closed throughout the pandemic. He has opened the week before Christmas with an inkling of hope that there might be business.

“I’m checking to see how many people come. Maybe next year I’ll close. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. That’s why I came in,” he explains.

But Mr. Han has long stopped peering toward the entrance. Instead, he rather lazily watches Korean singing shows from an old TV set tucked in the corner. The muffled songs are the only sound coming from the shop.

Outside, handwritten signs dot empty display windows of nearby stores. They read, “local en renta,” or “spot for rent,” and “A todos nuestros clientes, se les comunica que permanecerá cerrado hasta nuevo aviso,” or “To all of our customers, this is an advisory that the store will remain closed until further notice.” 

Padlocked and chained doors stretch down the street, and a few stray shoppers wander between the handful of stores that still remain open.

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“No one has come in. Yesterday, only three people came in. Yesterday, I only earned $10,” Mr. Han says, laughing. “Today, it’s nothing.”

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