Promise to Control Mexico's Southern Border Seems to Be Little More Than Talk Mark Stevenson - The Associated Press
go to original July 17, 2014

Migrants' Harsh Journey Through Mexico: CNN's Gary Tuchman is in southern Mexico following migrants looking to hitch a ride on anything that will transport them. (CNN)

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico — Mexico is promising to stem the flow of Central American migrants to the United States by tightening control at its notoriously porous Guatemalan border.

But messages from the country's top two leaders in little more than a week have provided few details on how. And the scene on the ground is business as usual.

Dozens of Central Americans who paid $1.50 a head could be seen this week crossing the broad Suchiate River on improvised rafts of inner tubes and wooden boards, in full view of Mexican police on the shore and immigration agents posted on a bridge overhead.

"I don't see anything has changed," Guatemalan Luisa Fuentes, 56, said as she rode a raft to Mexico.

"La Bestia," a decrepit freight train that carries migrants north from the border state of Chiapas, still carried many riders on its roof.

President Enrique Pena Nieto's government says it is catching and deporting far more Central Americans, but it remains unclear if enforcement has increased or just that the number of detentions is simply rising along with the larger numbers of Central Americans moving through Mexico.

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