More than a thousand migrants rode atop a freight train to the edge of the US border on Tuesday after dodging authorities on a 10-day journey through Mexico. Their trip had been beset by migration agencies’ efforts to get them off the train, said Daiverson Munoz, a 20-year-old from Venezuela.
“And we’re stuck in the middle of the desert. But it’s nothing, we’re here and we feel super happy because we’re about to realize our dream. It’s been hard but not impossible.”
As soon as they arrived in Ciudad Juarez, the group of mainly Venezuelan migrants threw their belongings on the ground and jumped off the top of the train. Their journey started in the central State of Mexico, pitting them against fatal accidents and injuries that are common on similar journeys.
“The hardest part was seeing how many people were injured” during the journey, said Munoz, a law student in his native country. The final 370 kilometers (230 miles) of the trip took 17 hours due to the number of stops, he said.
The risky trip has become virtually the only option for migrants to reach the border, due to restrictions on the purchase of coach tickets. The crowds have forced Mexico’s main rail operator to cut its traffic by 30 percent in mid-September, as the government tightened security measures to prevent such journeys.
Migration agencies “always get us off and we always lose money,” said Jeffri Gomez, a 24-year-old Venezuelan woman traveling with her husband and one-year-old baby.
As soon as they arrived, they came across an official from the Mexican National Institute of Migration and a barbed-wire wall from the Texas National Guard on the banks of the Rio Bravo, a natural border with the United States.
Some migrants waited for an appointment made through the US Customs and Border Protection’s mobile app in an effort to enter the United States legally. Others tried to cross the border on foot to surrender to police.
After a three-hour walk, hundreds of migrants arrived at one of the gates of the border wall, where about 50 officials and dozens of police officers were waiting to prevent them from crossing.
Arms folded, the migrants advanced, chanting “the united people will never be defeated,” until officials asked them to back off. The migrants then set up camp near a fence designed to prevent them from crossing.
