(Ciudad Juárez) More than a thousand migrants arrived Tuesday in Ciudad Juarez, on the border between Mexico and the United States, perched on a freight train after ten days of travel in the hope of reaching the American territory.
Most of these illegal migrants, the majority of Venezuelan origin, come from the State of Mexico, a crossroads halfway across the border for migrants coming from the far south of the country.
As soon as they arrived, the migrants threw their belongings on the ground then jumped from the train. Fatal accidents and injuries or mutilations are common during this type of travel.
The services responsible for monitoring migrants “tried several times to take us down,” explains Daiverson Muñoz, a 20-year-old Venezuelan. “And we’re stuck in the middle of the desert. But that’s okay, we’re here and we feel super happy because we’re about to make our dream come true. It was hard but not impossible.”
“The hardest part was seeing how many people were injured” during the journey, continues Muñoz, a law student in his native country. The last part of the trip, 370 km, took 17 hours due to the number of stops.
This risky journey has become virtually the only option for illegal migrants to reach the border, due to restrictions on purchasing bus tickets.
The influx forced Ferromex, the main Mexican railway operator, to reduce its traffic by 30% in mid-September while the government tightened security measures to prevent this type of travel.
Migrant services “always take us down and we always lose money,” says Jeffri Gómez, a 24-year-old Venezuelan who travels with her husband and one-year-old baby.
As soon as they arrive, they come across an official from the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM) and a wall of barbed wire from the Texas National Guard on the banks of the Rio Bravo, the natural border with the United States.
Some migrants are waiting for the appointment, obtained via the CBP One mobile application, to try to enter the United States regularly. Others try to cross the border on foot to turn themselves in to border police.
After three hours of walking, hundreds of them reached one of the gates of the border wall where around fifty migration service agents and dozens of police officers were waiting to prevent them from crossing.
Arms crossed, the migrants advance, chanting “the united people will never be defeated!” “, up to the men in uniform who ask them to step back. The migrants then decide to camp near the fence installed to prevent their passage.