Thread: Central Americans still making journey despite deportations

Central Americans still making journey despite deportations


Delcia Lopez
MCALLEN ,TX-Aug.25,2014-Border Patrol agents handcuff a mexican national after he was caught in a raft with other immigrants crossing the Rio Grande River near Chimmey Park in Mission Monday evening Aug.24,2014. Photo by Delcia Lopez dlopez@themonitor.com



Posted: Thursday, August 28, 2014 7:58 pm
LORENZO ZAZUETA-CASTRO | STAFF WRITER

McALLEN — Iris Juliesa Sabrion and her 15-year-old daughter, Alexandra Hernandez, fled their home in Honduras after a local gang killed the relatives they’d been living with in June.

Along the way to the U.S.-Mexico border, the 34-year-old and her teenage daughter met other Central Americans who shared similar stories of fleeing violence — a 14-year-old boy from Honduras and a 17-year-old girl from El Salvador.

After days of traveling through Mexico by bus before arriving in Reynosa, the group finally stepped foot onto U.S. soil.

Just minutes later, the exhausted group surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol agents.

“I can’t go back,” Sabrion said in Spanish. “Ten years ago, they killed my husband and we were staying with a nephew of his but in June they killed him and his wife, too.”

They were loaded into a truck and handed bottles of water while they waited for another agent to transport them to the McAllen station to be processed like so many others who comprised the immigrant surge into the Rio Grande Valley.

More than 57,000 unaccompanied minors have illegally crossed into the U.S. since October 2013. That doesn’t include kids like Alexandra, who crossed with a parent.

Jose R. Villarreal, the Border Patrol’s division chief of operations in the Rio Grande Valley sector, said one of the factors in the increase of unaccompanied minors is that many have relatives in the U.S. who pay smuggling groups to get them into the country.

Jesus Eduardo Garcia, the 14-year-old from Honduras, said he made the trip alone and met the others while in Mexico.

He said he left his home 12 days ago and was hoping to make it to South Carolina, where his brother was waiting for him.

The other person in the group, Dina, 17, said she left her home more than two months ago and was trying to reunite with her mother in Houston, who had arranged her trip.

Dina said her best friend was killed because she didn’t agree to join a local gang in El Salvador.

Villarreal, a 28-year veteran Border Patrol agent, asked the group if there are still rumors that once they get to the U.S. they will get to stay.

Sabrion said she saw on the news that people were getting deported. But the risk of getting sent back was less than what she faced back at home.

Sitting in the back of the truck and between sips of water, the weary travelers answered Villarreal’s questions.

Sabrion said her husband’s nephew owned a business selling livestock feed. He refused to be extorted by the gangs and paid the ultimate price.

She described how relatives in the U.S. tried to send her money to start a small business but said it was useless since she would be forced to hand over her earnings to criminals.

But it costs immigrants several thousand dollars to make their way from Central America to U.S. soil, where organized crime controls their illegal trips north.

Smugglers have adopted new technology along with the Border Patrol in the daily game of cat-and-mouse that transpires along the Rio Grande.

“They take advantage of technology, from night vision equipment to digital cell phones for communication,” Villarreal said.

“Before you’d see them drive up on the Mexican side, hear them blowing up the raft and then they’d cross [but] now it’s done in teams” as they scout out the border for agents to avoid being captured, he said.

The level of danger has also intensified over the years as weapons make their way into Mexico to arm drug cartels.

“We do run into guns, rifles and ammunition sometimes in the thousands,” he said. “About every three months I meet with Mexican officials and the Mexican military because they’re interested in what ends up going southbound because that’s what they have to deal with.”

Federal lawmakers failed to pass any immigration legislation before it went into a five-week break this month. They are set to return after Labor Day, but only for two weeks before the midterm elections in November.

Regardless of what politicians decide, Villarreal said his agents still have a job to do.

He then walked back to his truck to continue his patrol as Sabrion, her daughter and the other two Central Americans were loaded into another truck headed to the detention facility.

“One of the toughest parts of the job is you listen to the stories of not only what they’re saying about their homes but what they’re exposed to and the money they’ve given up,” Villarreal said. “That’s always very difficult for me.”

http://www.themonitor.com/news/local...a4bcf6878.html

I guess that seeking refugee status in, for example, Mexico, is out of the question. I mean, why would these people want to go to a country where they already speak the language.
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Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

. . . Some of the Central American men say that instead of trying to cross into the United States they'll now stay and look for work in Mexico . . .


http://www.alipac.us/f12/mexicos-new...igrant-310190/