Thread: U.S.-bound migrants take the long way through Latin America

U.S.-bound migrants take the long way through Latin America

BY ALINA DIESTE (AFP) 11 HOURS AGO IN WORLD

Mohamud is a long way from home. From a dusty Kenyan refugee camp, he has reached the sticky heat of the Caribbean, and his journey is not over.

The 27-year-old Somali has traveled nearly 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) from East Africa. His hoped-for destination now lies hundreds of miles to the north, in the United States.

"My journey was very hard," he told AFP.

He has made it to an obscure milestone on the transcontinental refugee trail: Colombia's port of Turbo.

Warfa Hirsi is one of thousands of migrants treading this trail through South and Central America.

They risk arrest, drowning, disease and abuse by people-traffickers. But still they come in their thousands.

From Turbo, traffickers take them by boat to a remote bay up the coast from where they can cross the border into Panama.

- Drowned -

Arriving by boat and plane from countries like Cuba and Haiti, and from as far away as Africa and Asia, migrants gather in Turbo, sleeping in hotels, abandoned buildings or under the stars.

They cram without life vests onto boats, sometimes with 40 people in a craft made for 20, braving four-meter (13-foot) waves.

"Vessels have capsized. These people have been drowning in the sea," said Brigadier General Adolfo Enrique Martinez, head of a Colombian navy anti-drugs task force in Turbo.

Colombia's coast guard patrol search for migrants in the Turbo municipality, Antioquia department, Colombia.
Raul Arboleda, --/AFP

Those who make it to the border will trudge through the Darien jungle into Panama, risking hunger, dehydration and disease, and on through Central America.

One Cuban migrant, 33-year-old computer engineer Aliex Artiles, tried it that way in 2010.

He wants to reach the United States to apply for residency under a special US agreement with Cuba.

Last time he got through the Panamanian jungle and as far as Mexico, where the authorities sent him back home.

This year, Artiles set off again, by plane from Havana to Trinidad, then by ferry to volatile Venezuela, from where he crossed the border into Colombia.

Now he is in Turbo.

"At first, we were sleeping out on the square. There were more than 60 of us. Then someone let us stay in this warehouse," Artiles said.

"There are more than 500 of us now. There are three pregnant women and various children. And more are arriving every day."

- Diseased -

Artiles is one of hundreds of Cubans in Turbo.

Haitian migrants walk in Turbo municipality, Antioquia department, Colombia, as they prepare to travel to the United States.
Raul Arboleda, --/AFP

"We just want them to let us travel onwards safely. We all qualify for the Cuban settlement law" in the United States," he said.

Outside the disused warehouse near the port, they shave and brush their teeth under the baking sun.

Women stand in line to use washing machines. Children cry and run around inside over the mattresses where the families sleep.

A state ombudsman for the surrounding district, William Gonzalez, warns that the overcrowding in the warehouse poses a health risk. Two people there have been hospitalized with malaria.

"It is a shocking situation," he said.

- 'Impossible' -

The city's hotels welcome the migrants who can pay.

"We are practically always full with them. And they pay in dollars," said hotel receptionist Ingrida Cordoba.

She showed a photograph on her mobile phone. A recent Congolese guest sent it to her after he made it to Miami.

Colombian gravedigger Ebelio Cortez stands next to unidentified tombs of migrants at the Nuestra Senora
del Carmen cemetery in the Turbo municipality, Antioquia department, Colombia.Raul Arboleda, --/AFP

Among the current guests at another, more basic hotel, is Jean-Baptiste Geraldo, 27. He fled from the impoverished Caribbean island of Haiti.

"The situation there was very difficult," he said. "I want to go to a country where there are opportunities."

He reached Colombia via Brazil. Like many others, he has taken a roundabout route hoping to reach the United States.

The journey has got harder since Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua tightened their borders in recent months.

A government delegate in Turbo, Emelides Munoz, said authorities in the district have detained more than 4,000 illegal migrants so far this year -- more than the total for the whole of 2015.

The head of the Colombian migration agency, Christian Kruger, said it was "impossible" for them to agree to help the migrants pass through.

"If we allowed them to leave for another country we would be formally accepting an illegal situation," he told AFP.

"We would be contributing to the criminal trafficking of migrants."

With its port and plantations, Turbo, population 163,000, is a center of banana production and trafficking of drugs and people.

The United Nations estimates the gangs make billions of dollars trafficking migrants through the region.

- Deported -

Having fled civil war in his native Somalia, Warfa Hirsi grew up in the vast Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.

In March, he said goodbye to his family there and left for Ethiopia. From there, Hirsi flew to Brazil, where he worked briefly before heading for Colombia.

"They deported me three times," said Hirsi, who finally made it to Turbo.

He is tired. But he still smiles and his eyes twinkle.

In the United States, he said, "I will be a doctor, God willing."

U.S.-bound migrants take the long way through Latin America

Disgusting. These people just all make me sick. We don't want them, we don't need them, our government is supposed to prevent their entry and protect US from the ravages of illegal immigration.

Demand a 10 to 20 Year Moratorium on All Immigration. Now.

We must do this so the world knows not to come here to live or work. The world must hear and see that no more immigrants of any kind are welcome in the United States.

Go be a Doctor in your Country!

They can all take the "long way" back!

No papers...no entry...no rights...no hearing.

The head of the Colombian migration agency, Christian Kruger, said it was "impossible" for them to agree to help the migrants pass through.

"If we allowed them to leave for another country we would be formally accepting an illegal situation," he told AFP.

This seems so obvious. Yet we have huge organizations openly assisting these people. I am aware that there are various policy loopholes, that allow some of it. With all of the expense and hardship it would be less expensive to start a business in their own country. I understand that in countries like Cuba that is nearly impossible.

I understand that in countries like Cuba that is nearly impossible.

Only because of what we've done to that poor country with the Cuban Embargo. The only reason we had that for so many years was because the Cubans who fled Cuba or claim they "fled Cuba", and came here and wanted to punish their own people back home by trying to starve them to death through trade embargoes. What kind of people would do that to their own families?