El Bordo, a section of Tijuana River Canal on US border, was home to scores of Mexican IV drug users, many of them HIV-positive, 09/21/2013.
Christian missionaries bless Salome Qunitero, an IV drug user who lived with four others in this manhole beside Tijuana’s River Canal on the US border, 12/04/2013.
Reyna Ortiz outside her hut in El Bordo, 09/24/2013. Ortiz grew up as an undocumented immigrant in the US and was deported after a drug conviction.
Reyna Ortiz with her boyfriend Israel, a former preacher, in El Bordo, 09/24/2013. Ortiz, who had worked as a nurse’s assistant, was too frightened to get an HIV test.
Police collect the body of a man from El Bordo after a suspected overdose, 10/21/2013.
Zulema Sanchez shares heroin from a friend’s syringe in El Bordo, 08/08/2014. Sanchez, who was suffering from a gum infection, supported herself as a sex worker.
Zulema Sanchez says a regretful goodbye to her boyfriend “Chango” in El Bordo, 10/18/2014, because the unhealthy living conditions there were making her ill.
IV drug user Veronica Conrado kisses her boyfriend after missionaries persuaded the pair to leave El Bordo and check into a rehab center, 09/28/2013
Veronica Conrado and her friends prepare heroin in El Bordo after she returned from a rehab center where she said staff mistreated her and sent her out to beg, 08/08/2014.
Dr. Patricia Gonzalez gives basic medical attention and HIV tests to people living in El Bordo, 08/01/14, at a weekly mobile clinic she started in 2014
Susi Leal, an HIV-positive outreach worker and ex-IV drug user, looks for people in El Bordo who participate in an HIV testing project known as El Cuete, 09/23/2013.
Susi Leal laughs with old friends in El Bordo, where she lived for eight years, 09/06/2014. They often wore medical masks to deter police from bothering them.
People with HIV/AIDS often ended up at Las Memorias hospice on edge of Tijuana, where medical staff visited but care was given by volunteers, 12/12/2013.
Las Memorias hospice depended on scarce private resources, and when patients died the municipal authorities would take hours to come and collect their bodies, 12/12/2013.
Marta Patricia Ruiz, one Tijuana’s oldest sex workers, waits for clients in downtown Tijuana, 11/25/2013. She was HIV positive and an occasional IV drug user.
Marta Patricia Ruiz waits for a diagnosis at a walk-in clinic near Tijuana’s red light district, 01/11/2014. The visiting US doctor just found out she had tuberculosis.
Marta Patricia Ruiz was back on the street days after a stay at Las Memorias HIV/AIDS hospice, 12/12/2014.
Gay sex worker Oscar Villareal waits for a pick-up in a Tijuana park, 07/20/2014. Oscar grew up in the US, becoming a restaurant crew chief, but was deported in 2010.
At night, Oscar Villareal would transform himself into his alter-ego “Alejandra” before going in search of clients in the city’s bars, 07/14/2014.
In his transgender alter-ego “Alejandra,” Oscar Villareal shops for used high heels from a late-night street vendor, 07/14/2014.
“Jessica” Lopez admires a watch she said was a gift from a client as she and another transgender sex worker relax in a brothel in downtown Tijuana, 09/25/2014.
“Jessica” dances with a friend at a party at Las Memorias hospice, where she had been a patient, 9/27/2013. She was deported from Los Angeles in 2003 after a drug bust.
“Fernanda,” an HIV positive transgender sex worker, looks for clients in downtown Tijuana, 7/16/2014. Some would cross the border from California for the night.
“Fernanda” smokes methamphetamine from a modified light bulb in her brothel room, 09/26/2014. A strong aphrodisiac, meth is the drug of choice for the city’s sex workers.