Essential Travel Restriction Into Mexico Now in Effect
NOGALES, SONORA, MX – At about 7:45 pm today, immigration in Mexico has officially activated filters to only allow essential travel through the international border from the USA into Mexico.
Immigration interviews travelers as they enter the country and will either allow them into Mexican territory or return them to the USA.
Traveler Experience
When travelers cross the border from the USA into Mexico through Sonora, Immigration will receive them. Immigration will interview to classify the reason for travel.
If the travel reason is classified as essential, the travelers will be allowed to enter the country. If the travel reason is classified by Immigration as non-essential, they have the authority to return travelers to the USA.
Essential reasons are those listed in agreement 94 signed by the leaders of USA, Mexico and Canada.
Mandate
The governor of Sonora, Claudia Pavlovich, announced the initiative earlier this week. Letting Sonorans know that the intent is to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in Sonora. The state is currently experiencing a significant rise in infection rates and hospitals are almost at full capacity.
Over the past weeks, Arizona’s infection rates have also risen considerably. The Governor released an executive order to pause operations of bars, movie theaters, gyms, and waterparks for 30 days.
This was a holiday weekend for Arizona and southbound border crossing was about the same quantity as last year.
On Thursday night and Friday morning many travelers crossed the border from the USA into Mexico. There were sanitization filters installed on the Mexican side, but they had not yet received the official mandate to only allow essential travel.
The Customs administrator in Nogales, Juan Gim, stated that he received the official mandate a few minutes before 7:45 pm, but as he announced yesterday, they were ready with a plan for immediate implementation.
Nogales’ community seems to be divided into two groups. One group saying “it’s too late” and the other saying “anything we can catch is still good”.
Essential Travel into Mexico:
- Mexican citizens and lawful permanent residents returning to the United States
- Individuals traveling for medical purposes
- Individuals traveling to attend educational institutions
- Individuals traveling to conduct essential work in Mexico
- Individuals traveling for emergency response and public health purposes
- Individuals engaged in lawful cross-border trade
- Individuals engaged in official government travel or diplomatic travel
- Members of the Mexican armed forces and their families
