On October 11, 2011, EHC and our Mexican affiliate the Chilpancingo Collective for Environmental Justice marked an important victory in the bi-national campaign to restrict maquiladora truck traffic from Colonia Chilpancingo and Murúa, where diesel emissions from the trucks have caused respiratory problems for school children.

Signage was posted in August 2011 banning the trucks from the streets where the schools are located. EHC, alongside members of the Collective and its youth group, conducted a campaign for more than two years seeking to restrict semi-truck traffic driving past the three public schools in the neighborhood.

Semi-trucks serving the maquiladora assembly plants take shortcuts through the neighborhood exposing 2,000 school children, and everyone who lives and works in the area, to high levels of diesel emissions. Experts associate these diesel emissions with serious health risks, including asthma, cancer and heart disease. More than 1,000 supporters signed the petition circulated by EHC, the collective and youth group, demanding a halt to the invasion of semi-trucks from the adjacent industrial park, the largest in Tijuana.

The World Health Organization recently changed diesel emissions from the "possible carcinogen" list to the "carcinogen" list.