Passion Over Reason
"What we have seen is that no one is getting across the border."
"This forces families, with all the desperation they feel, to go illegally."
Hector Silva, director, migrant center, Reynosa, Mexico
"I honestly don't want to cross illegally, but I don't really have a choice."
"I don't have an option, I can't be there [Honduras]. Our government is totally corrupt, and if the Mexicans or Americans deport me, I'm dead."
Julian Escobar Moreno, 37, Honduran migrant
"Look, we know what the situation is in our country. We don't know what will happen when we cross [into the U.S.]"
"Desperation makes you do crazy things. I don't think anything would stop me. And certainly not a wall."
Osman Noe Guillen, 28, Honduran migrant, Reynosa
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| Rio Grande River bordering Mexico and Texas Photograph: Meredith Kohut/The New York Times |
Newly married, Mr. Guillen has decided he belongs not in his country of origin, Honduras, but in the United States, where legendary opportunities to prosper lie. What drives them is what they insist is economic need, and blind faith in a future that lies ahead for them in America, convinced that Honduras is history for them and the U.S. is their future. Now they've arrived in the Mexican town of Reynosa, a border town where they planned to apply for asylum in the U.S.
They can apply for asylum, but to do so they will wait a long time since the U.S. administration has adopted a policy to admit a handful of asylum seekers daily at border crossings where migrants must now wait on the Mexican side of the border for weeks or months before given the opportunity to submit their applications. Delays that make a faster option look promising. And to take advantage of that faster option means engaging the services of a smuggler.
There's no question of desperately searching out a smuggler. Their cartels are everywhere in Reynosa, blatantly advertising their services for hire. And the price keeps rising in lock-step with the border delays. Those waiting focus on just one thing; their anxiety to cross the border separating Reynosa from McAllen, Texas near the banks of the Rio Grande. Reynosa is a border town grim with gun violence. And thousands of Central Americans wait at the border up to Tijuana, for their opportunity.
Although they know of the dangers inherent in illegal crossings, migrants who make that decision will not be dissuaded; they have calculated that they will not return to what they've left, and must by any means be enabled to enter the Paradise of opportunities that they imagine the U.S. to be. Osman Guillen and his wife Lilian Marlene Menendez took a bus from Honduras, looking upon it as a honeymoon adventure.
They chose Reynosa as the closest crossing from Honduras, the least costly to reach. They were aware of the anger expressed in the United States about illegal entrants to the country and the hordes of migrants waiting to rush the border or infiltrate it with the aid of smugglers. They know about deportations, they are aware of long waits at the border. Nothing will serve to turn them away from their destination of choice.
The risks of being smuggled in where polleros (smugglers) have been known to abandon migrants midway if payment is not given in full, who sometimes kill those they have been contracted to guide to the promised land, who will attempt to extort migrants' families to mortgage homes and pay them more than contracted for, are all stories they are aware of. They were quoted a price of $7,000 each to guide them to the bank across the river on the Texas side.
Already one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico, Renosa mayor Maki Esther Ortiz Dominguez states her concern over the situation: "This policy could at any moment detonate a new crime wave here". Smugglers are used by Mexicans as well, the price quoted them substantially less. Despite that the migration office in Reynosa recently saw a group of Mexicans waiting to be processed having been deported from the United States.
"For the migration authorities, it is a job. For Mexicans and Central Americans, immigration is a dream. We have something to live for, and that keeps us going", said18-year-old Melvin Gomez from the state of Chiapas, who had just attempted for the fourth time to cross into the U.S. and failed.
Labels: Central America, Honduras, Mexico, Migrants, Texas, United States
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, January 29, 2019
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