Top Mexican officials are going to push to ease pandemic restrictions between Arizona and Sonora, which have been in place borderwide for nearly a year.

On Tuesday, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said that he would raise that prospect with his American counterparts this week, given that Sonora is considered green — or low risk — on the federal government’s COVID-19 scale. Important border cities, including Nogales, are also deemed low risk by the state.

“Personally, I've kind of taken the attitude, let's wait and see what happens before we get excited,” said Evan Kory, whose family runs two stores near the border in Nogales, Arizona.

He and other border merchants have seen business collapse over the last year, with many of their Sonoran customers barred from entering by the rules, which have been extended monthly since last March.

“It’s been unlike anything we’ve ever experienced,” he said. “My lifetime, my parents’, my grandparents’ lifetime, where the border has never been closed for this long.”

Kory noted that U.S. nationals have been able to cross back and forth with few, if any, restrictions throughout the last year.