Central American migrants reportedly facing increased dangers
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As the immigration debate in the United States this week focuses on Special Order 40 and the LAPD’s powers of deportation, a tragic accident on Monday and new statistics on migration highlighted the increasing dangers so many Central Americans traveling north experience.
On Monday, a truck carrying Central American migrants in a hidden compartment plunged into a reservoir in southern Mexico near Guatemala, killing at least eight people. Six men and two women drowned when the truck crashed into the dammed-up waters. They were trapped because they were hidden under a floorboard beneath a load of kitchen goods. The International Herald Tribune carried the story.
In the same week, new statistics from U.S Border Patrol and Mexico’s National Immigration Institute show that many Central Americans who travel up through Mexico to reach the United States never even make it to the U.S. border.
A crackdown on Central American migrants in Mexico and damage to train tracks during Hurricane Stan is stopping them from reaching their ultimate destination.
According to a report earlier this week by the Associated Press, the number of non-Mexican migrants stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol dropped almost 60% from 2005, despite increased detention efforts. Only about 68,000 non-Mexican migrants — mostly Central Americans — were detained last year, compared with 165,000 in 2005.
Despite efforts to secure its own southern border, Mexico doesn’t try to stop its own citizens from crossing north, writes Olga R. Rodriguez.
The Mexican crackdown on Central Americans has sent people from Guatemala, Honduras and other countries searching for new, and dangerous, routes.
Photo: Central American migrants ride atop freight trains through Chiapas in southern Mexico. Credit: Don Bartletti for the Los Angeles Times series ‘Enrique’s Journey.’ The photos were also reprinted in a book of the same name by journalist Sonia Nazario.
-- Deborah Bonello