Immigrants Headed to US Through Mexico Turn to Sea Travel as Land Patrolling Intensifies Adriana Peralta - PanAm Post
go to original April 2, 2017

A raft with people from Guatemala, bound for Mexico in the Suchiate river (Reuters/Jorge Dan Lopez)

Due to immigration pressure on land and areas controlled by drug cartels, many illegal immigrants are choosing to enter the United States by sea.

Every night, dozens of immigrants near the border travel through Chiapas, pass through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to Veracruz and end up in Tamaulipas.

“There are three or four daily boats around here that leave with 15 or 20 chickens each,” Gabriel Ortega, a councilor to the mayor of Mazatan, Mexico, said

It is estimated that 400,000 people travel through Mexico each year trying to reach the United States, most of them from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, where poverty and violence run rampant.

...Immigration by sea shares several characteristics with land immigration: polleros or coyotes have the authority and knowledge to move people.

The advantage of going by sea is that illegal immigrants avoid border controls between Guatemala and Mexico. Each person pays between US $400 and $800, though there are no official figures on the price for such a service.

Read the rest at PanAm Post | Español

Related: Migrants Are Now Drowning Off the Coast of Mexico, Too (Quartz)

Related: Trump Wall May Reinforce Shift to Maritime Migrant Routes (Insight Crime)

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