Rails are Risky Crossing in Mexico for a New Wave of Central American Migrants The Washington Post
go to original July 16, 2013

For close to two decades, thousands of Central American migrants have lost their dreams, limbs and lives trying to illegally cross Mexican territory. Mexico represents a great challenge for those whose only goal is to reach the northern border hoping to incorporate themselves into the United States. Their Calvary begins in the state of Chiapas, the moment they step on Mexican soil. (Pedro Ultreras)

At a makeshift church shelter beyond the industrial parks north of Mexico City, the train riders wait under a canvas tent, listening for a locomotive horn. They keep their shoes on and their backpacks zipped.

The tracks outside run through Mexico’s central highlands and all the way to the Texas border. The shelter is a halfway point for Central Americans on the 1,500-mile trip north, but many do not arrive here in one piece.

... Central Americans have been catching freight trains to the U.S. border for years, risking injury or worse for a free ride and a path clear of Mexican government checkpoints. But at a time when illegal immigration to the United States remains near its lowest point in four decades, the number of Central Americans going north has soared, putting new attention on the rail system that takes thousands to the border each year.

Read the rest at The Washington Post

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