When the humanitarian aid workers decided to dismantle their elaborate tented setup — erected right up against the border wall — they hadn’t seen migrants for a month.
A year earlier, when historic numbers of migrants were arriving at the border, the American Friends Service Committee, a national Quaker-founded human rights organization, came to their aid.
Eventually the group received enough donations to erect three canopies, where it stored food, clothing and medical supplies.
But migrant crossings have slowed to a near halt, bringing a striking change to the landscape along the southernmost stretch of California.
Shelters that once received migrants have closed, makeshift camps where migrants waited for processing are barren, and nonprofits have begun shifting their services to established immigrants in the U.S. who are facing deportation, or migrants stuck in southern Mexico.
Meanwhile, the Border Patrol, with the assistance of 750 U.S. military troops, has reinforced six miles of the border wall with concertina wire.