“I told my brother, if you want to go, let’s go,” said the 19-year-old, who asked CNN to retain his last name.
They filled two backpacks with a set of clothes and a toothbrush, each. Carlos made a razor. Wilfredo is not yet shaved.
With 2,000 Mexican pesos (about $ 100) between them, they broke the news to their mother.
“I was crying,” Carlos said. “He asked us not to go because we would miss him. It was very sad to leave home, not knowing if you would die or where you would end up.”
The trip to the United States from Central America is infamously dangerous. Less than a week after he left, talking to CNN and grimacing as he tried to get the blood running down his forehead and dripping into his right eye, Carlos’ fears would be confirmed.
The number of migrants is increasing
CNN first met the two brothers in Mexico. Guatemalan immigration authorities had already taken all the money they had along the way, they said. However, when they joined dozens of other migrants at the La 72 immigrant shelter, right on the border of the small town of Tenosique, they were in a good mood.
Wilfredo watched from the sidelines as Carlos took off a sticky T-shirt to join a t-shirt football match against skins, migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua set aside their travels for a moment, a short break to the beautiful game.
Carlos ’team won and it was all smiling as he spoke to us. “There are a lot of people, apart from us, who decided to leave and emigrate in search of a better life,” he said.
Every night a line is formed in front of the main entrance of the refuge. One recent night, dozens patiently waited for temperatures to rise and wash their hands, mandatory entry during an ongoing pandemic.
“This year we have seen a huge increase in flow during the first two months of the year,” said Father Gabriel Romero, director of the shelter. “People are no longer afraid to leave their countries because of Covid-19 because they would rather not die of hunger, violence or unemployment.”
The shelter registered about 5,500 people in January and February, according to Romero. They only registered 3,000 in the whole of 2020.
“I think it’s a time of humanitarian emergency,” Romero said.
Romero says that if the pace continues (and he hopes it will), this year he could see more immigrants in his shelter than ever before.
Why now?
For five days reporting on the ground near the Mexico-Guatemala border, CNN spoke to dozens of migrants. They said the reasons for the increase were endless, but all the agreed poverty was at the center.
Covid-19 has reduced its tithes in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala before the pandemic. Finding a job has never been easier, they say, but never harder than during a generational health crisis.
Tens of thousands of people were displaced. With nowhere else to go, a large majority of migrants told CNN about the hurricanes and their aftermath played a major role in their decision to head north.
A third reason has also emerged: there is no longer a Trump White House.
“He’s no longer a racist president,” said José Alduvas Moncada Salinas, who spoke to CNN as he rested along the set of railroad tracks where he walked. “He looked at us like we were animals.”
Trump, who made anti-immigrant rhetoric a central part of his political appeal dating back to the early days of his 2015 campaign, pursued several policies to curb immigration.
The Biden administration is trying to alleviate Trump’s more restrictive immigration policies. He also says he will admit more asylum seekers, but it will take time to do so. Citing a pandemic and hoping to prevent a border crossing, U.S. officials have publicly said now is not the time for migrants to come.
This did not deter any of the migrants with whom CNN spoke. Most said they believed a Biden presidency would give them more chances to enter and said they would not wait for the pandemic to ease.
“That’s the difference, that suddenly the new president is noble with a good heart,” Moncada Salinas said.
Mexico has intensified its enforcement of immigration in recent years, initially motivated by the Trump administration’s economic threats. He has continued the presence of his national guard along the southern council and has denied migrants free passage in transit to the United States. But thousands are still finding ways.
“One of the most dangerous journeys in the world”
Carlos and Wilfredo left with a group from the La 72 shelter the next morning, at a lively and optimistic pace, trying to cover as many kilometers as possible before the midday heat closed.
They did not leave for any specific reason: poverty, hurricanes and Biden were part of it, they said. “If you have nothing to live on at home, come this way to look for work,” Carlos said, accurately.
They took a route along a set of unused railroad tracks. A train nicknamed “The Beast” used to run here and the migrants boarded, taking a walk north. A construction project has stopped the train for now, but migrants are following their tracks.
“It’s one of the most dangerous trips in the world,” said Rubén Figueroa, an activist for the Mesoamerican Movement for Migrant Advocacy. “The migrant route is riddled with cartels and local criminal groups that see migrants as commodities, so they are victims of assault, extortion, sexual assault, kidnapping and murder.”
A few hours later, Carlos and Wilfredo left their route. It was clear that they had been attacked. Several members of the group, including the two brothers, were bleeding.
“We had stayed a little behind the front of our group, and when we got to them, we saw how the thieves had them at gunpoint,” Carlos told CNN that four gunmen and a woman assaulted them. .
Carlos and Wilfredo tried to run but did not have time. A gunman attacked Wilfred first.
“One of them was carrying a gun in his hand and I said,‘ I’m not afraid of you ’and that’s when he hit [Wilfredo] and so I went to look for him. I don’t know how he hit me, ”Carlos said.
Carlos, Wilfredo and another man were whipped with a gun. Wilfredo had a severe head injury. A former surgeon, who showed a photo of the wound, told CNN he hoped he would need more than half a dozen stitches or staples.
Carlos and the other man were bleeding from swollen wounds, each on the right side of his head.
Their attackers took the little money the group had and dispersed it.
Shortly after Carlos told this story on CNN, a white van drove down the dusty road. He was from the National Migration Institute of Mexico, the agency responsible for enforcing immigration law.
The group shouted and ran, scattering through the woods.
Better days await us … maybe
That night, the brothers and the group walked more than 12 hours, reaching about half a mile from the next most used immigrant shelter on the route.
Their group took a break in the morning, having an instant coffee given to them by a woman who owns a small cellar along the train tracks.
Immigrants spend “day and night,” he told CNN. “This group just came right now, more will come this afternoon. I would give them more, but today I didn’t cook for myself.”
The brothers sat in front of his tent, exhausted. The trip was still worth it, Carlos insisted. Eventually, they would arrive in the United States and he would find work, although he has no real plan on how to do it or in what state he will work.
Wilfredo, dazed and calm, was not so sure.
“I don’t know if it’s worth it,” he said. “But wherever my brother goes, I’ll always be there.”