By Chris Hershberger Esh, MCC’s Context Analyst for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Mexico City.
On Sunday, a cargo train derailed near Villahermosa, Mexico. Aboard this cargo train were 250 Central American migrants, five of whom were killed and many others injured.
Gory pictures of the bodies showed up on tabloids in Mexico City the next day. Death always makes front page news in these particular papers though, so five people dying in a train accident 750 km from the capital isn´t exactly a groundbreaking event.
What was news to many readers, I assume, is that behind this one train that wrecked, there are thousands of trains that silently make the trek, each carrying hundreds of Central American migrants. It´s estimated that 140,000 Central Americans illegally enter Mexico every year. Most of these migrants are passing through on their way to the United States, but some come looking for work in Mexico.
The train, nicknamed La Bestia (¨The Beast¨), is the primary way Central American migrants make the dangerous 3,000 km trek across Mexico. Migrants must pay smugglers around $100 to ride the train, on which robberies, rapes and assaults are all too common. Additionally, many migrants fall asleep during the journey and fall under the train’s wheels.
During the 1980s, Mexican officials maintained a laissez-faire attitude toward Central American migrants. Since the 1990s, with pressure from the United States, however, the Mexican government began cracking down on illegal immigrants. Around 100,000 are now detained and deported every year.
If a Central American migrant successfully completes the harrowing journey across Mexico on La Bestia, avoids arrest by Mexican authorities, and bypasses dangerous drug cartels, they still must face the increasingly militarized U.S./Mexico border. In a sense, they´ve done all that just to make it to the starting line.
What pushes a Honduran, Guatemalan or Salvadoran to take this long, dangerous journey? The answers are complex, but in a region with such stark economic inequality—both within countries and between countries—the movement of people is inevitable, despite the risks.
For more on Central American migration across Mexico, check out this brilliant photo essay by John Moore on The Atlantic´s In Focus section