Everything was ready for the 12th Hugs Not Walls event scheduled for Saturday, May 10, the same day as Mother's Day in Mexico and across Latin America.

The permits were obtained, the T-shirts were printed and families were ready to embrace on the border between the United States and Mexico, but the event has been canceled due to the Trump administration's expansion of a border military zone.

"A family event was stopped by placing the military at the border," Fernando García, the founding director of the El Paso-based Border Network for Human Rights , said. "We are not going to have Hugs Not Walls on Mother's Day."

García made the disappointing announcement in the office of the organization Wednesday, May 7.

He said that the local offices of Customs and Border Protection, the Texas National Guard, and other local government bodies had signed off on the event that provides families separated by the border a way to meet and briefly embrace, but the revoking of the license came from higher up.

"The decision was not made here in El Paso, or in the region, but a crushing decision that came from above that said this event shouldn't happen," García said. "The decision made by Washington didn't care about family and children at the border. This is the clear realization that people make political decisions based on distortions, vitriol and they make decisions that are essential inhuman."

But the families still wanted to do something.

He announced that, in the place of the event, Border Network for Human Rights and the families are holding a protest on Saturday under the title of Madres de la Frontera: Love Without Borders. The protest will be held on either side of the border at 10 a.m.

Hugs Not Walls has become a tradition in the Borderland since 2016. The Border Network for Human Rights has organized 11 events to bring families separated by the border together in the middle of the Río Grande to embrace.

They hope that in the future they will be able to hold Hugs Not Walls again.

Militarizing the border

The Department of Defense announced in April that it was establishing a National Defense Area, a 170-mile-long, 60-foot-wide stretch of land that runs along the U.S.-Mexico border from El Paso through New Mexico to the Arizona border. The border militarization follows President Donald Trump's executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern border, calling the arrival of migrants an "invasion."

The number of migrants currently crossing the border is at a historically low level.

The Trump administration began looking to create a military zone along the New Mexico border in March 2025. It would empower the United States military to detain any migrant who unlawfully crosses the border into the United States until they can be turned over to immigration authorities.

A second National Defense area was announced on May 1 , southeast of El Paso, and falls under the command of Fort Bliss.

Those arrested for entering the military zone are being prosecuted for trespassing and charged under 50 U.S.C. 797, the violation of a military security regulation. At least 130 people have been arrested for violating the military zone in New Mexico as of May 2.

Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at: [email protected] ; @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky.