Asylum seekers from Mexico, Central America, Africa and the Caribbean camp at El Chaparral Plaza in Tijuana, Mexico, as they wait for their immigration cases to be heard in the U.S.

A handful of portable toilets and hand-washing stations are available for the roughly 2,000 migrants at the El Chaparral encampment.

The migrant camp at El Chaparral Plaza overflows with trash and debris.

Migrants and a few Tijuana locals wait to be seen at the Resistencia en Salud clinic.

By the time clinic doors opened at 10:30 a.m. on a recent Thursday, a line of people were waiting to sign up. Some were turned away because the clinic hit capacity.

The clinic is small and basic, with two exam rooms. Staffers coordinate with Mexico’s public health system to handle patients who need more specialized care, such as surgery or chemotherapy.

For the growing number of migrants trying to cross into the U.S. at the southern border, survival is a pressing concern than covid-19.

Dr. Hannah Janeway consults with one of more than a dozen patients she treated at Resistencia en Salud on a recent Thursday.

Resistencia en Salud depends on donations and a mostly volunteer staff to keep the doors open.

Drs. Hannah Janeway and Christian Armenta discuss a patient.

Clinic staff perform an electrocardiogram on a Haitian man with chest pain.

Nurse Luz Elena Esquivel says she tries to educate patients about maintaining distance and wearing masks during the pandemic, but “it’s not their priority,” she says. “Their priority is crossing.”