Fewer non-Mexicans caught at border
Central Americans face added difficulty in crossing Mexico
Olga R. Rodriguez, Associated Press

Sunday, April 13, 2008

For thousands of illegal immigrants from Central America, the long journey to the United States starts here, on the groaning back of a freight train they call "The Beast."

But these days, many don't get too far.

Central Americans without documents now face increased security within Mexico, including checks on the train for stowaways. It's also harder for them to head north once they cross into Mexico because of hurricane damage to the train tracks.

The result: The number of non-Mexican immigrants stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol has dropped almost 60 percent from 2005, despite increased detention efforts. About 68,000 non-Mexican immigrants - mostly Central Americans - were detained last year, compared with 165,000 in 2005. Non-Mexicans make up about 10 percent of all immigrants caught by Border Patrol officers.

Mexico itself is also seeing fewer illegal immigrants - 120,000 were arrested last year, a 50 percent drop from 2005, when Hurricane Stan hit and destroyed the railroad, according to the National Immigration Institute. Since President Felipe Calderon took office two years ago, Mexico has added more soldiers and federal police on its border with Guatemala and more checkpoints throughout the south.

Despite its efforts to secure its own southern border, Mexico does not try to stop its own citizens from crossing north illegally into the United States, beyond pursuing drug and people smugglers. By law, Mexico notes, Mexicans can go wherever they want within the country, including the border. They don't break any laws until they are on U.S. soil.

Many Mexicans are also sympathetic to illegal immigrants from Central America, but the issue still causes some tensions that echo the U.S. debate. Isaac Castillo, owner of the Hotel La Posada in Arriaga, argues that Central American immigrants often end up working in Mexico, where wages can be double the few dollars a day they might earn at home.

"The problem isn't just in the U.S., but in Mexico, because a lot of Central Americans want to stay here and compete with Mexicans for jobs," he said.

The crackdown on Central American immigrants has left them searching for new routes. Some pay smugglers $7,000 to go by boat into southern Mexico, then hide in tractor-trailers heading north.

These boats and trucks try to evade highway checkpoints set up every few miles alongside most of Mexico's southern roadways. But immigrants have been crushed to death when false floors collapsed under the weight of freight, and 22 Salvadoran immigrants drowned in an October shipwreck off the coast of southern Oaxaca state.

For those Central American immigrants unable or unwilling to risk the sea, a cargo train - "The Beast" - remains the only option for the 2,000-mile trip to the United States.

The long trek begins at the Suchiate River, on the border with Guatemala, where for $1 they cross on makeshift rafts into sweltering jungles.

Then they hike along the destroyed, sun-scorched train tracks to Arriaga for up to nine days. Arriaga, 200 miles from the Guatemala border, has been the closest place to hop a train since Hurricane Stan destroyed the Chiapas-Mayab line.

As they head north, they pay off thieves, immigration officials, police and railroad employees.

Juan Gabriel Ramos, a Guatemalan 17-year-old trying to join his mother in California, said he bribed a Mexican federal police officer and an immigration agent before even making it to Arriaga.

"They both told me that if I didn't give them money they would send me back to Guatemala," Ramos said.

When they're caught, migrants say they're often abused by Mexican authorities.

"The mistreatment of migrants here is brutal, and no one does anything about it because everyone sees them as booty," said Heyman Vasquez, a Roman Catholic priest. He estimated that 80 percent of immigrants are robbed before they arrive at his two-room shelter in Arriaga.

The slowdown in immigrant traffic is notable in Arriaga, a town of corn and sorghum farmers. Only a few clusters of Central American men and women linger around the mostly abandoned, graffiti-covered train station, where they wait for the first train they can grab. Many stay at a local immigrant shelter, watching television or sharing stories of abuse.

Sitting on a cracked sidewalk outside the shelter, one Nicaraguan man told of the time he saw a group of criminals gang-rape a woman and shoot her boyfriend. A Honduran couple talked of fleeing their country, after gang members killed their teenage daughter, and leaving their seven children, ages 1 to 18, in hiding.

It doesn't get any easier once immigrants hop a train. They must often bribe private guards and police stationed along the tracks. Many stowaways are too tired to hold on to the train and fall, losing limbs.


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