‘The other Ellis Island’: the US border area that sees the whole of global migration

While political leaders hundreds of miles away clash over the border crisis', the El Paso sector has served more than 200,000 people since October

It was just past 10am, but the west Texas sun already burned high above the border fence, a serpentine steel line slicing the Chihuahuan desert in two. On the US side, a short distance from the Paso del Norte International Bridge, the Sacred Heart shelter stirred with activity.

Children giggled and shrieked as they chased each other in circles around the converted gymnasium, decorated with brightly colored pinatas, a mural of the Virgen de Guadalupe and a string of plastic flags, a small reminder of the countries they left behind: Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico. Their parents, who carried them across jungles, rivers and entire countries, rested on mats. A mother breastfed her son. A woman braided hair.