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Helen Morejón, Karina Estrada, and Emilia Tapia Jimenez are law students at Rutgers Law School – Newark, University of Miami Law, and George Washington University Law School, respectively. As IRAP student chapter members at their universities, the three law students participated in an environmental displacement research trip and storytelling project at the U.S.-Mexico border. They co-wrote the following blog.
Valentina* (they/them), a non-binary Indigenous person of the Lacandon Maya people in Chiapas, Mexico, grew up working in coffee and corn fields in a remote part of the Lacandon Jungle. In 2012, a hurricane made landfall in Chiapas, triggering landslides, destroying homes, and leaving many injured and some dead across the country. In 2015, an earthquake ripped through Valentina’s community, causing the roof of their house to collapse and injuring their mother. As a result of the environmental disasters, the once-fertile jungle degraded, and food grew scarce. When Valentina publicly advocated for the Lacandon Maya people’s rights and land and demanded government aid for their people, they were met with threats instead of support.
The Project
Valentina is one of many displaced people we interviewed during our trip to the U.S.-Mexico border to better understand how climate change and environmental disasters impact migrants and asylum seekers. In January of 2025, as IRAP student chapter members, we visited five shelters throughout El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. At shelters, we interviewed 26 individuals using a questionnaire designed to better understand how climate change affects individuals seeking U.S. immigration relief. We were accompanied and supervised by IRAP attorneys and partnered with Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, a local non-profit that conducted Know Your Rights trainings at the shelters.
What We Learned
Our interviews bolstered existing IRAP findings showing that a significant number of people experience severe climate impacts and environmental disasters, both in their countries of origin and along their journeys north. Nearly all the displaced people we interviewed reported experiencing some type of climate impact and/or environmental disaster during treacherous journeys through the Darién Gap, where landslides, high heat and humidity, mountainous terrain, and rushing rivers often injure and kill migrants and asylum seekers. Interviewees frequently described how climate-related challenges they faced were compounded by existing socio-economic and political instability.
Valentina, for example, faced climate impacts, coercion, and violence, which were heightened due to their Indigenous and LGBTQ+ identities. After facing government threats due to their activism, they moved to Tuxtla Gutiérrez at only 16 years old. There, they began to feel unsafe after witnessing frequent violence against LGBTQ+ people. Again, Valentina fled north, this time with hopes of eventually reaching the U.S.-Mexico border. In Veracruz, they experienced a severe storm and fractured their arm while attempting to rescue a girl trapped by a landslide. Sadly, the girl did not survive. Valentina crossed desert landscapes for two days without water, and they were extorted on four separate occasions by organized criminal groups and government officials alike. In Juárez, Valentina was kidnapped, beaten, and held for ransom for two months. Today, they live in fear and hiding at a migrant shelter in Juárez, stranded by U.S. immigration policies.
The Journey to Safety
As global temperatures rise due to climate change, people will further experience climate-related impacts, environmental disasters, and displacement both within their countries of origin and across borders. These challenges will continue to disproportionately impact historically marginalized groups, such as Indigenous communities, that already face other systemic hardships. It is imperative that we move toward a more compassionate and proactive approach to climate-related displacement.
When we interviewed Valentina, they were awaiting an opportunity to seek asylum via CBPOne, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection mobile application that allows people to schedule appointments to enter the U.S. at certain land ports of entry. This pathway to safety is no longer available ever since the current Trump administration ended CBPOne. However, the previous Biden administration also bears responsibility for Valentina’s continued insecurity, as its asylum ban forced her to remain stranded in Mexico in the first instance.
Rather than imposing restrictive immigration policies that focus on failed deterrence tactics and obstruct movement, leaving people with no choice but to take perilous routes, governments throughout the world must forge and protect pathways to safety for asylum seekers, refugees, and climate-displaced individuals alike.
*The interviewee’s name was changed to protect their identity.