Mexico Has Its Own Version of Trump's Border Wall and It's Just as Controversial Ana Campoy - Quartz
go to original September 13, 2016

Riding 'The Beast’ Changed This Boy’s Life Forever (AJ+)

Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto has called the border wall proposed by US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump a threat to his country (link in Spanish). But his own plan to deal with immigrants illegally breaching Mexico’s southern border is based on the same basic principle: block them out.

Peña Nieto’s administration recently announced it is seizing a privately managed railroad system that’s a key part of a network of cargo lines that has funneled hundreds of thousands of Central Americans through Mexico and into the US. Dubbed “La Bestia,” or “the Beast” due to the brutality of the journey atop it, the train has served as a cheap mode of transport for poor northbound travelers with no other option than climbing on the roof of freight wagons and hoping not to fall—or worse, be thrown off by the armed gangs that control access to the train. It’s a white-knuckle journey that can last days or weeks of fending off thirst, overhead tree limbs, and robbers.

Under government control, La Bestia will be much harder to board. Mexico’s transportation department, which will take over the railroad concession, has suggested it will patrol the train lines with extra guards, cameras, motion detectors, geolocation devices, and even drones in a document (Spanish) published Aug. 23 in the country’s official journal.

“The current circumstances of insecurity… call for new security measures,” the document states.

Just like Trump’s wall, the security barrier along the tracks is unlikely to become a big deterrent for immigrants, experts say, because it fails to address the reasons they risk their lives by boarding the train to begin with. More surveillance will do nothing to solve the rampant violence and poverty in Central America, or quell people’s desire to reunite with family members who’ve already safely made it north.

“The best you can hope for is a minor decrease in overall traffic,” says Christopher Wilson, deputy director at the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute.

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