For nearly three decades, Texas native Irma Ramirez has worked at different stores and stands in the Mall del Norte, only a mile away from the Rio Grande. To say she’s an institution within the mall is an understatement. Those who pass by her colorful Nuts N Stuff cart, which is covered from one end to the other with sweets and candies, wave hello or stop for a few minutes to chat, and her cart is a favorite stop for Laredo locals and visitors from Mexico.
“I have customers from everywhere—Zapata, Eagle Pass, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey. No matter who it is, I talk with them,” Ramirez explained in Spanish.
Ramirez hasn’t seen many—if any—of her customers from the other side of the border for nearly two years. The Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge that connects Laredo, in the United States, with Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, used to be packed with cars and vans. Now it has but a sliver of individual and family traffic. Instead, the vast majority of the lanes is taken up by the 18-wheelers that literally drive the engines of commerce between the two countries.