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 News from Around the Americas | January 2007 
Central Americans Still Pouring Into Mexico
 James C. McKinley Jr. - NYTimes
| | Despite a recent crackdown on illegal immigration by Mexico's new president, Central American migrants still flock across its southern border hoping to make the journey to the United States. (Adriana Zehbrauskas/NYTimes) |
Tapachula, Mexico – Four Salvadorans trudged along the railroad tracks under a hot sun. They had only been in Mexico for a few hours and already federal police had forced them to strip and had taken almost all their cash, they said. They had some 1,500 miles to go to reach the U.S. border, with no food or water and $9 each.
They intended to walk along the Chiapas coast for the first 250 miles through a dozen towns where migrants are regularly robbed or raped. Then they planned to board a freight train with hundreds of other immigrants for the trip north, a dangerous journey that has left hundreds before them maimed after they fell under the wheels.
"It's dangerous, yes, one risks one's life," said one of the men, Noe Hernandez. "One risks it if you have a family member in the States to help you. It's not just for fun we go through Mexico."
Last month, President, Felipe Calderon announced measures to slow the flow of illegal immigrants across Mexico's southern border and reduce crime in this impoverished region. He increased the presence of soldiers and federal police here, unveiled plans for a guest worker program and promised joint state and federal operations to catch illegal immigrants.
But much remains to be done to stop or deter the migrants, and for now the measures have had little effect. Social workers and volunteers who aid the migrants say they keep coming.
Every three days, 300 to 500 Central Americans swarm the freight train in Arriaga, strapping themselves with ropes or belts to the tops of cars or riding between the wagons, they say.
| | The Suchiate River, on the border of Guatemala, is one of the crossing points into Mexico for many illegal migrants from Central America. (Adriana Zehbrauskas/NYTimes) |
The migrants still wade across the Suchiate River between Guatemala and Mexico with little hindrance. Corruption is rampant. The soldiers and police on the Mexican side extort money from the migrants but seldom turn them around, aid workers and migrants said.
"It's an open border," said Francisco Aceves Verdugo, a supervisor in a government agency that gives food, water and medicine to illegal migrants. "We are confronting a monster so big in the form of corruption that we aren't doing anything."
The authorities do catch and deport illegal immigrants from Central America on their trek north. Still, aid workers say that most get through.
The biggest deterrent, migrants say, is not federal authorities but armed thugs who waylay them along the railroad tracks or on paths through the countryside used to avoid the immigration posts along the main highway. |
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