Despite regular news coverage from the U.S.-Mexico border, one population has received less attention: Transborder commuters.

These individuals live on one side of the border, but regularly cross over for work, education, commerce, or medical services. At the San Ysidro Port of Entry (between San Diego and Tijuana), approximately 75,000 transborder commuters cross each day. Students and workers often face long wait times and as the immigration debate rages on, these commuters find themselves caught in a precarious position which can impact their well-being.

Estefania Castañeda-Pérez, a researcher at UCLA, has spent the last several years studying the experiences of transborder commuters. Inspired by her own lived experience of crossing the border to attend school in the U.S., Castañeda-Pérez has compiled survey responses from 770 individuals in Tijuana and 1,300 people at the El Paso crossing and hopes to gather more data from other ports of entry.

No matter where you stand on the issue of immigration, data-driven evidence can help inform future policies in the U.S. Castañeda-Pérez recently spoke with Giving Compass to share some of her survey findings and offered advice for donors.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell us about your research and the goal of your study.

One of the things I envisioned when I was growing up was trying to bring visibility to what really occurs at ports of entry and how individuals have to make significant changes to their lives in order to be able to live this bi-national lifestyle.

The study is exploring how border enforcement impacts individuals’ sense of legal empowerment, mental health, and bi-national sense of belonging. According to my data, 60 percent of transborder commuters are actually U.S. citizens, while everyone else has a tourist visa or green card. In my interviews, individuals have reported that they don’t feel like they belong in U.S. society because of what happens at the border -- how CBP (U.S. Customs and Borders Protection) treats them and because they don't have access to many resources.

The importance of the study is that it really demonstrates how borders act as classification systems that ultimately affect the individual lives of transborder commuters.

Ultimately, it’s really about examining the types of rights violations that regularly occur and get overlooked by policymakers and civil rights lawyers. The intention of the study in the future is to examine the structural and systemic violence that really occurs at the ports of entry.

What has surprised you so far?

I came in having a lot of assumptions, even about my own community. In the first study, it was U.S. citizens who had the highest social capital, but were reporting the most negative experience at the border. Part of the reason that result came out is probably because these are the most empowered individuals, they understand their rights, they’re more legally aware of what happens at the border, and they understand that they should be treated with respect.

Individuals who have the worst experience at the border feel excluded from U.S. society, but at the same time they report feeling more politically aware and politically engaged in the U.S.

One of the main frameworks I’ll be using at the dissertation stage is a question: How do you feel as you’re crossing the border? People tend to feel that it’s normal, that it’s just a routine part of everyday life. When I first conducted the study [in 2017], I assumed that there were going to be a lot of people reporting negative experiences at the border, but it was quite the opposite. There’s a large population [for whom violent border incidents] have become so normal that they’re probably not going to feel empowered to file a complaint. I’m looking at those inconsistencies to examine how people are normalizing violence.

How do you respond to the argument that tighter borders are necessary?

I think a lot of this narrative on the border really stems from the fact that individuals really don’t know what occurs at ports of entry. Borders are really meant to be crossed by trans-border commuters and other populations. What happens in the U.S. isn’t an isolated event, we’re all connected.

How are we ensuring safety for some individuals, but not for others?

What role can philanthropy play?

Castañeda-Pérez, who has received support from organizations like the Ford Foundation, offers this guidance.

Provide funding to organizations on the ground: “The civil and immigrant rights organizations are always in need of help. They need financial support to do the day-to-day operations supporting asylum seekers.” Castañeda-Pérez and several U.S. grantmaker networks recommend Al Otro Lado and Kino Border Initiative.

Support education and research focused on the border: “Funding for our education and research projects allows us the privilege to focus on being students full time, focus on our studies, and research topics that directly affect our communities. Most importantly, investment in our education contributes directly to our success and ability to represent our communities and experiences in the academy, which historically and continues to be exclusionary to people of color.”

Use your voice: Advocate to policymakers or media sources so activists like Castañeda-Pérez can speak about what happens at the border. “It’s extremely necessary right now to have allies. Being an ally, while it is providing financial support, is also [about] opening the doors for us and providing that necessary connection to that policymaker that cares.”