200 Refugees Are Crossing Mexico to Escape Violence - and to Confront Trump Bryan Schatz - Mother Jones
go to original May 1, 2017

Refugees from the migrant caravan riding on the Mexican rail line known as The Beast (Cristobal Sanchez)

At this moment, a group of 200 refugees fleeing violence and gangs in Central America are heading north through Mexico in hopes of seeking asylum when they reach the US border later this week. The caravan, which has been planned with a coalition of Mexican and American organizers, is meant to raise awareness of the perils facing migrants in Mexico as well as the Trump administration's efforts to prevent refugees from legally entering the United States.

It's been an eventful journey. On April 9, the group of men, women, and children crossed the Suchiate River into Mexico from Tecún Umán, Guatemala. Since then, they have journeyed atop La Bestia, also known as "The Beast" and "The Train of Death," the notoriously dangerous network of freight trains that migrants use to traverse Mexico. They've escaped a standoff with Mexican immigration agents in Veracruz. Two weeks ago, a Mexican-American immigration activist named Hugo Castro went to meet the caravan, and disappeared after posting a cryptic video saying that criminal groups were "hunting" him. He was found five days later and admitted to a hospital with serious injuries and potential brain damage. Then, in Mexico City, someone sabotaged a vehicle transporting some of the refugees, causing one of the wheels to fly off, according to one of the caravan's organizers.

They may face another obstacle at the American border. Since the election of President Donald Trump, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials have allegedly been turning back asylum seekers at an alarming rate. According to multiple human rights lawyers and observers, CBP officials at border crossings have denied entry to refugees on a variety of pretexts. Some asylum seekers have been told they need paperwork from the Mexican immigration agency or that they'll have to come back later because officials don't have time to process them. Others have been told that the United States is no longer accepting people from their country or that it's only admitting refugees from countries where Christians are being persecuted.

Nicole Ramos, an American human rights attorney working in Tijuana, has accompanied nearly 70 asylum seekers to the American border over the past year. CBP refused to process many of them. Border officials, she says "act like they are giving these people something from their own pocket, like these people are asking to go live in their own living room or something, or that they're all coming in loaded up with 10 kilos of coke and an automatic rifle. They're humble people, most of whom don't have any criminal history. They're survivors of profound trauma, who don't speak English or understand anything about the legal system."

Read the rest at Mother Jones

Related: Armed Gang Fires at Uber Drivers Transporting Illegal Immigrants Across Mexico (PanAm Post)

Related: How Crossing the US-Mexico Border Became a Crime (The Conversation)

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