CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Chatting with friends and carrying his lunch cooler, Carlos Carrillo was among hundreds packing the international bridge as they returned to Mexico from their jobs across the border. The construction worker has dual citizenship and a home in El Paso, but since the weekend shooting rampage that killed 22 people in the Texas border city, he has been staying with his mother in Juarez.
It means a much longer daily commute, he said, “But right now, I don’t want to go there.” His home in El Paso is near the Walmart where the carnage took place.
But crossing for work is necessary.
“Here it’s normal,” he said Tuesday of his binational life. “All of us cross every day. We go to work and we come back.”
The ties between the two border cities remain strong despite the attack Saturday that appeared to target Hispanics and whose victims included eight Mexican citizens. Mexicans still pack the international bridges going to jobs, stores and schools like always. There’s been no talk of boycotting El Paso, a city that depends heavily on Mexican shoppers.
Many like Juarez Mayor Armando Cabada pointed out that the alleged shooter was from north Texas, not from the border community, and somehow that made the pain inflicted less personal.
“They see him like an external agent who looked for a place where the deadly effect of his act could have the greatest repercussions,” said Rodolfo Rubio Salas, a professor and researcher at Colegio de Chihuahua.
But even such a horrendous crime will not have a lasting impact on the relationship between the two cities, Rubio said.
Some 15,000 to 20,000 Juarez residents cross to work in El Paso every day and an additional 15,000 students go over the border to study, Rubio said. There are other ties, too: 75 percent to 80 percent of Juarez residents have a relative or close friend in El Paso they stay in touch with, a recent survey found.
Some of those who cross to shop and are scared now may stop for a time, Rubio said. “But for those who have to cross every day to work, to study, to visit family, I don’t think it is going to have a long-term impact.”
On Tuesday, wait times for vehicles entering El Paso from Juarez were still around the usual two hours-plus. A steady stream of pedestrians flowed across the Paso del Norte bridge in the morning and a similar flow came in the reverse direction in the afternoon.
Graciela Perez was among those walking to El Paso to shop as she does once a week. She had tried to go Monday, but the line was so long she put off her trip by a day.
Two weeks earlier, Perez was at the Walmart where the mass shooting took place shopping for her kids. She admitted being a little worried crossing for the first time since the attack, but added, “We have to go.”
At a market of stalls selling used clothing in downtown Juarez, Monica Diaz said she wasn’t afraid to cross, but would likely steer clear of the Walmart shopping center. It’s the most popular one for Juarez residents because it’s a five-minute drive from the bridge.
