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 Quintero, an IV drug user who lived in this manhole beside Tijuana’s River Canal, 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 bust

Reyna Ortiz with her boyfriend Israel 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 supported herself as a sex worker

Zulema Sanchez says a regretful goodbye to her boyfriend “Chango” in El Bordo, 10/18/2014, because the conditions there were making her ill

IV drug user Veronica Conrado kisses her boyfriend after missionaries persuaded them to leave El Bordo and check into rehab, 09/28/2013

Veronica Conrado and friends prepare to inject heroin after she returned to El Bordo from rehab, where she said staff mistreated her, 08/08/2014

Dr. Patricia Gonzalez gives 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, 09/23/2013

Susi Leal laughs with friends in El Bordo, where she lived for eight years, 09/06/2014. They wore masks to deter police from bothering them

People with HIV/AIDS often ended up at Las Memorias hospice, where medical staff visited but care was given by volunteers, 12/12/2013

Las Memorias hospice relied on scarce private funding, and when patients died city workers would take hours to collect their bodies, 12/12/2013

Marta Patricia Ruiz, one of Tijuana’s oldest sex workers and HIV-positive, waits for clients in downtown Tijuana, 11/25/2013

Marta Patricia Ruiz waits for a diagnosis at a walk-in clinic, 01/11/2014, where 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 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” admires a watch she said was a gift from a client as she and another transgender sex worker relax in a Tijuana brothel, 09/25/2014

“Jessica” dances with a friend at a party at Las Memorias hospice, where she had been a patient, 9/27/2013

“Fernanda,” an HIV positive transgender sex worker, looks for clients in downtown Tijuana, 7/16/2014. Some crossed the border from California

“Fernanda” smokes methamphetamine from an old light bulb in her brothel room, 09/26/2014. Meth is the drug of choice for Tijuana sex workers