'Caravan of the Mutilated' Shows What Migrants Risk When They Cross Mexico to Reach US Alice Ollstein and Esther Yu-Hsi Lee - ThinkProgress
go to original June 19, 2015

In 2009, 34-year-old Honduran national Jose Efrain Vasquez was running from immigration authorities to board La Bestia, the Mexican freight train that carries hundreds of thousands of migrants northward, when he slipped on a rock. The train wheels pulled him under, dragged him, and left him with an amputated left leg. A few years earlier, Honduran father of four Geremia Gamez was running from police authorities in Southern Mexico to catch the same freight train, when he fell and lost both of his legs.

“That’s when my American Dream collapsed,” Gamez told ThinkProgress, in Spanish. “I was trying to help them my family but I ended up being another burden for them.”

Vasquez, whose leg is amputated four inches above the knee, said he suffered three years of deep depression following his accident and subsequent deportation back to Honduras. Close to tears, he told ThinkProgress: “We don’t blame the U.S. for our injuries. We’re just asking them to try to help our government and work with them so that we don’t have to leave in the first place.”

Both Gamez and Vasquez are part of the Caravan of the Mutilated, a group of Honduran men who were seriously injured or lost a limb while climbing La Bestia, or The Beast, as they made their way into the United States. The Beast is one of the fastest ways for migrants to get from Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala to its northern border with the United States. About half a million migrants ride The Beast annually, NPR reported last year. Beast riders, like Gamez and Vasquez, often get sucked into the wheels while they try to jump on or fall off while sleeping.

The Caravan, now in Washington, D.C., hopes to send the message to President Obama that heavy immigration enforcement policies targeting Central American migrants are causing serious injuries or death during their northbound journey.

Read the rest at ThinkProgress

Photo: Esther Yu-Hsi Lee

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