But if this has been a politically fraught period for many in Gibraltar, for the approximately 15,000 workers who regularly cross the border with Spain it has been a time of tremendous anxiety and confusion.

“I have noticed fear in other people, and especially a lot of speculation,” said Karina Ortiz,  who lives in Campo de Gilbratar, just over the border in Spain, and crosses into Gibraltar daily.

Mauricio Pacifico, a Brazilian immigrant who crosses the border every day from Campo de Gibraltar, echoes this anxiety.

His biggest fear is a recurrence of what happened at the border in 2015, when, because of new procedures introduced at customs by the Spanish government, it took workers hours  and sometimes days to travel from Gibraltar to Spain.

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She longs for her adopted country to work with its neighbor to the north—a “diplomatic way to resolve people’s conditions,” she said, for “the good of the people and the border.”