The road into America

Central American immigrants bus into the U.S. interior from the Valley

Posted: Saturday, June 28, 2014 8:42 pm
BY JACOB FISCHLER STAFF WRITER

McALLEN — The rider took his seat at the back of the 3:45 p.m. bus to Houston, filing past row after row of children sitting in window seats and women next to them.

Many of the women carried large envelopes, and almost all of the children had oversized stuffed animals. Some carried neon green backpacks with “Metro McAllen” and the city’s stylized ‘M’ logo printed on the back.

About 45 of the 57 passengers on that bus Tuesday were children and mothers from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, all recent arrivals to the United States — identifiable by their possession of yellowish envelopes stuffed with legal paperwork.

One woman from Honduras clutched her envelope under her arm nearly the whole ride. When she went to the bathroom at the back of the bus, she took both the envelope and her son with her. She relinquished control of the paperwork only the moment she opened the door, when she handed it to her child.

Mostly, the Central Americans carried little, except for donated supplies some had received.

“We usually give them a stuffed animal,” said Ofelia de los Santos, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. “It started off with the kids, but then the mothers started asking for them for pillows.”

Many wore clothes that didn’t appear to have been through a weeks-long trek.

Carmen Manaja, on her way from El Salvador to Miami, received clothes at a shelter in Reynosa, and saw others given donated clothing at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, she said in Spanish.

Sacred Heart also gave the travelers food to take on their buses.

“We actually have a snack center that's located on the east side of the facility,” de los Santos said. “They put a snack pack together” that comprises sandwiches, chips and candy.

Many appeared to be eating some of the food items for the first time.

Seated toward the back of the bus, 5-year-old Andrea Garcia giggled as she inspected a Frito chip. She held the salty snack up to her nose and sniffed it, then made a face at her mother, Madelin Garcia.

The two shared part of the small bag before handing it across the aisle to another woman and her son who didn’t have food.

“You don't know each other but you help each other, because you are all trying to reach the same place,” Madelin Garcia said in Spanish. “We share what little we have.”

The Garcias departed Honduras with only each other, but met several other travelers on their way, the 26-year-old mother said.

Garcia said she left her native Francisco Morazán Department in Honduras about a month ago because she had no opportunities to work. In Houston, she planned to get on a bus to Tampa, Florida, where she and Andrea would live with a friend, she said.

Later on the ride, as Madelin Garcia talked with two or three other women sitting near her, Andrea scrutinized a bologna sandwich. She discarded the bread, held a slice of meat in one palm and slapped it with the other, giggling again.

The food was only one of many foreign experiences to the travelers.
At a Stripes store in Robstown — the first stop where riders could step out for a stretch — confusion ran among the passengers. Riders shouted at the bus driver asking in Spanish about the cost of items, and then slowly counted their American money at the counter.

“Not to be mean with the people, but these people are lost,” said Luis, a 45-year-old rider from Mission, as the stop ended and travelers filed back onto the bus. Luis declined to give his last name.

“They don’t understand. They go in the store, they can charge them whatever they want,” he added. “These people are not from here. They don’t know the customs here, they don’t know nothing. They need somebody to tutor them, you know, to help them out.”

But before that, when the bus pulled over at the Border Patrol checkpoint in Falfurrias about 5 p.m., no one seemed surprised. The women reached for their envelopes.

A Border Patrol agent boarded and walked straight to the back of the bus. He worked his way forward, stopping at each row to ask U.S. and Mexican riders for identification and the Central Americans for their paperwork. As he approached, the radio on his belt audibly called out license plates of passing vehicles, the first English heard on the bus since it pulled out of the McAllen terminal.

The agent spoke directly to every adult and some of the children, asking their names and final destinations. His fingers, clad in black leather gloves, flipped through the roughly 30-40 pages of paperwork enclosed in each envelope.

The stop lasted about 15 minutes. Then the agent jumped off and the bus pulled back on U.S. 281.

The paperwork included an “order of release on recognizance” for each traveler.

“You have been arrested and placed in removal proceedings,” one notice began. The document specified a time and place each immigrant was to appear for further court proceedings.

U.S. law requires child immigrants — and their accompanying family members — from countries other than Mexico be released into the custody of relatives or friends already in the country, instead of being held at an immigration detention facility or immediately deported.

Most enter the U.S. through the Rio Grande Valley, where more Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 50,000 unaccompanied children since its fiscal year began in October — a dramatic increase over previous years. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not released the number of children and families released with an order to appear, but onlookers estimated that hundreds pass through the Valley daily.

Sacred Heart took in 111 people on Monday, the day before the bus departed. Thirty-six remained overnight, unable to get a bus ticket. The next day, 94 people — about 44 families — visited the church.

The travelers often arrive destitute at the shelter, which only serves children travelling with adults. Having spent — or been robbed of — all the money they had, they are dependent on others to wire money for a bus ticket or buy it over the phone.

If all goes well, they may be able to pay that money back soon.

“They may be penniless now, but when they get to Los Angeles, Atlanta, Baltimore, Maryland, they’re not going to be that way for long,” de los Santos said.

A short woman, about five feet tall, stood in line at the Valley Transit Company ticket counter on Tuesday, carrying a toddler in her arms.

She spoke to the ticket clerk in Spanish for a few minutes, then took a black flip-phone from her pocket and made a call. She spoke a few sentences in Spanish, then handed the phone across the counter to the ticket clerk, who asked in Spanish for a credit card number.

A short while later, the woman smiled as she walked away from the counter, ticket in hand.

The mood on the bus to Houston appeared light, considering the circumstances. Mothers chatted with each other. Children climbed on seats, as if they were on a very long school field trip. Smiles and laughs far outnumbered cries. A mother and teenage daughter held hands, the teenager resting her head on a stuffed SpongeBob and the mother resting hers on the teenager’s shoulder.

The bus ride was perhaps far less perilous and exhausting than journeys from Central America to the Rio Grande. Travelers pay thousands of dollars to coyotes to help them safely navigate through Mexico. But doing so puts them at the mercy of the smugglers, who have been reported to rob, extort and sexually assault their charges.

And though that part of the journey is behind the riders on their way to Houston, the immediate future doesn’t guarantee safety or comfort.

Most who appear at their court dates will be deported to their home countries. Those who don’t report will live like the rest of the estimated 11 million people living the U.S. illegally — without the protections afforded to citizens and legal residents.

A laid-back conversation with Madelin Garcia suddenly turned stressful when she was asked what she planned to do in Tampa. Her eyes welled with tears.

“What will I do? Well, I want to work to take care of my daughter,” she said in Spanish, her voice breaking.

jfischler@themonitor.com

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