Mexico a dangerous hurdle for
U.S.-bound migrants
By Greg Brosnan
CIUDAD TECUN UMAN, Guatemala (Reuters) - When Hurricane Mitch tore
through
Central America in 1998 killing 9,000 people, half of Jose Abram
Serrano's
house in the northern Honduran city of Progreso collapsed into a
raging
river.
He needs money to rebuild it, and the only place he
can earn enough is the
United States. Planning to get there as an illegal
immigrant, the 22-year-old
has made it as far as the hardscrabble Guatemalan
frontier town of Ciudad
Tecun Uman.
The poorest of the poor of
disaster-prone Central America's migrants cannot
afford to pay $4,000, the
going rate for a guide or 'coyote' to get them
safely to the United States.
They are forced to make the journey under their
own steam.
But
Serrano now faces one of the biggest obstacles on his journey -- Mexico.
"This is where the nightmare begins," said Adelmar Barilli, a Brazilian
priest who runs "The House of the Migrant," a free hostel for cash-strapped
clandestine travellers in the town that thrives on the passage of illegal
migrants.
The hostel, impeccably swept by its grateful guests, is
built around a
tree-filled patio where colorful painted faces of migrants of
different races
beam out from a bright mural on the wall. It also offers
medical checks and
legal advice free of charge.
Serrano was among
about 80 young men mostly from Honduras and El Salvador
waiting at the
hostel recently for the right moment to cross a nearby river
and sneak
aboard a rusty freight train headed north on a perilous route
through
southern Mexico.
"I'm no train enthusiast, but it's the cheapest way,"
said Serrano.
"It's free," he laughed, then turned deadly serious,
contemplating the
journey ahead. "It's also the most dangerous."
On
a wall beside a map of Mexico hung Mexican government posters warning of
the
dangers of river, mountain and desert crossings on the border with the
United States.
But these migrants, many as young as 17, have a long
way to go before they
reach the Rio Grande.
"Some of them think the
U.S. border is right there over the river," said
Barilli. "They have another
4,000 km (2,485 miles) of border to go before
they get that far."
FRONTIERSVILLE, GUATEMALA
Tecun Uman is a hot, humid,
sprawling mass of dusty streets ruled by tricycle
taxi drivers. It is a
steadily growing town of 20,000 inhabitants on
Guatemala's Pacific coast
that is named after a Mayan resistance hero from
the time of the Spanish
conquest.
Money-changers thumb wads of tattered bills on street corners.
Every business
seems to be either a cheap motel or a call centre advertising
bargain phone
tariffs to the United States and Central and South America.
Tatty barefoot beggars spin yarns about marathon journeys while
prostitutes
in skin-tight miniskirts whistle at potential clients from
curtained doorways
of seedy bars blaring salsa into the street.
Gang
graffiti covers most walls, and tattooed toughs laden with gold jewelry
drink beer on the steps of convenience stores, sneering at passersby.
Upstream from an official border post, no immigration officials are to
be
seen on either side of the slow-flowing Suchiate River. Crossing into
Mexico
from Guatemala is as simple as a five-minute raft ride costing less
than a
dollar.
But stowing away on the network of trains snaking
north is not for the
faint-hearted. When the train stops at stations,
migrants jump off and hide
in the countryside until it lumbers off again,
when they jump back on.
This was to be Serrano's second shot at reaching
the United States. On his
first try he was arrested in the central Mexican
city of Queretaro. In a
trick used by many migrants, he claimed he was
Guatemalan to avoid being
deported further south.
MACHETES AND
ROCKS
But being caught by 'La Migra', as migrants call the
immigration wing of
Mexico's Interior Ministry, is only one danger of the
trip.
In Mexico's Chiapas state, which borders Guatemala, Serrano said
he and about
25 more stowaways had to defend themselves with large rocks on
one occasion
from a gang of 15 machete-wielding hoodlums intent on stealing
their meager
belongings.
"Some people give up and turn back the
first town they get to," said Osman
Ulloa, a chubby 28-year-old with a gold
tooth from the town of Siguatepeque
in Honduras' central highlands.
A veteran migrant who had been deported from Mexico and the United
States
four times and was preparing to make his fifth trip, he outlined the
best
strategy to avoid being left penniless by robbers.
"From Tecun
Uman you only take the very minimum money you need to make it up
to Mexico
City," he said. "Then you get money wired so you can make it the
extra way."
As the migrants waited for dinner to be served, a train's whistle
sounded in
the distance, sparking the hostel to a buzz of excitement.
Migrants furiously
packed shoulders bags and discussed their imminent
departures.
Ulloa said he was taking his 19-year-old nephew with him on
the journey,
pointing to a nervous-looking baby-faced youth sitting on the
bench next to
him.
He said that on his return to Honduras he would
build a house for his mother
or maybe even open a car-repair shop.
"This is every migrant's dream," Ulloa said, adding that many Mexicans
seemed
to relate to such goals themselves.
Kindly inhabitants of one
railway town had once tossed bags of food and
bottles of water onto a train
on which he had been traveling with other
migrants in northern Mexico, he
said.
And after catching him, one immigration official had even given
him a piece
of friendly advice: "Sorry son, try again."