NOGALES, Ariz. — Evan Kory started calling brides in Mexico’s northern Sonora state last March, asking if they wanted to get their wedding gowns from his Arizona store just before the U.S. closed its borders with Mexico and Canada because of the coronavirus.
His namesake shop in the border town of Nogales was popular among brides-to-be in northern Sonora for its large, affordable inventory, said Kory, the third-generation proprietor. Located steps from the border fence, Kory’s has been in business for half a century but has been closed for a year because of the pandemic, with its main customer base – Mexican day-trippers – largely unable to come to the U.S. and shop.
Some 1,600 miles north, Roxie Pelton in the border town of Oroville, Wash., has been in a similar pinch. Business at her shipping and receiving store is down 82 percent from a year ago because most of the Canadians who typically send their online orders to her shop haven’t been able to drive across the border.
Last summer, the 72-year-old let two employees go. She now works alone.
“I’ve gotten by this far, and I’m just praying that I can hold until the border opens up,” Pelton said last month.
In border towns across the U.S., small businesses are reeling from the economic fallout of the partial closure of North America’s international boundaries. Restrictions on nonessential travel were put in place a year ago to curb the spread of the virus and have been extended almost every month since, with exceptions for trade, trucking and critical supply chains.
Small businesses, residents and local chambers of commerce say the financial toll has been steep, as have the disruptions to life in communities where it’s common to shop, work and sleep in two different countries.
“Border communities are those that rely – economically, socially, and yes, health wise – on the daily and essential travel of tourist visa holders,” the presidents of 10 chambers of commerce in Arizona, Texas and California border cities wrote in a letter last month to the Homeland Security and Transportation departments. It asked the government to allow visitors with U.S. tourist visas to cross into their states.
As more Americans are vaccinated against COVID-19 and infection rates fall, many hope the restrictions will soon be eased.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, asked the Biden administration last month to reconsider U.S.-Canada border restrictions, arguing “common-sense exceptions” like family visits or daily commerce should be made for border towns where infection rates were low.
However, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the U.S., Mexico and Canada agreed to extend border restrictions on nonessential travel through April 21.
Meanwhile, Democratic U.S. Rep. Ra’ul Grijalva of Arizona has introduced a bill to provide small businesses within 25 miles of a U.S. border with loans of up to $500,000 or grants of $10,000.
“Cross-border traffic is the lifeblood of their economy,” Grijalva said.
