Migration through Mexico

Today’s NYTimes has an interesting story by James T. McKinley about migration across Mexico’s southern border.  The story, Migrants Stream into South Mexico, reports that Mexico removed about 170,000 noncitizens last year.  But that has not quelled migration.  The article highlighted the price that some migrants are willing to pay for a chance to make their way north.  The article notes opens with the story of 4 Salvadoran men planning to travel the 1500 miles to the U.S. border with no food, no water and $9 in cash:

They intended to walk along the Chiapas coast for the first 250 miles through a dozen towns where migrants are regularly robbed or raped. Then they planned to clamber aboard a freight train with hundreds of other immigrants for the trip north, a dangerous journey that has left hundreds before them maimed after they fell under the wheels.

“It’s dangerous, yes, one risks one’s life,” said one of the men, Noé Hernández. “One risks it if you have a family member in the States to help you.”

And one migrant who already lost his foot to a train in an earlier effort to head north commented

“If something happens to me, I don’t scare easy,” he said. “I’ll do it again to see who wins, the train or me. Only thing is I can’t run, so I’ll have to wait until it’s stopped to get on.”

-jmc