Analysis
Anti-migration policies killed another child in Mexico after ‘The Beast’ derails
The grieving father: ‘If they allowed us to travel freely on a bus, so we wouldn’t risk ending up in the hands of criminals or worse, as in our case, none of this would have happened.’
The “Devil Train” has claimed another victim. The freight train that crosses Mexico south-to-north was on its journey from Chihuahua to the U.S. border. It was carrying sulfuric acid, chlorine – and migrants. Among them were Josué and Ruth and their two children, ages 4 and 7. They had left Venezuela months ago with the goal of reaching “the American dream,” as Josué calls it.
Disaster struck at around 10 p.m. on Tuesday, September 3, on the stretch leading to Ciudad Juárez, in the middle of the desert in the Ahumada area: “We start hearing a metallic noise. We see sparks. Suddenly, everything has fallen apart.” The train derailed. The cars flew off the tracks. Ruth and Aaron, the younger of their two children, were trapped under the metal debris. Rescue workers arriving on the scene managed to pull Ruth out. She had a mangled foot: at the hospital, medical workers would be forced to amputate it. However, they could not find Aaron even after hours of searching. His lifeless body would eventually be recovered at dawn on September 4.
His father, Josué, stayed at his wife’s bedside for two days, his eldest son with him. On the way out of the hospital in Ciudad Juárez, before being picked up by the staff of the National Institute for Immigration (INM) along with his son, he recounted to the online newspaper La Verdad that “this was the third or fourth train we took in Mexico, I don't even remember anymore.” Their goal was “to reach our relatives in the United States.”
The journey of Josué, Ruth and their two children started from Chiapas, from Palenque station. They hopped from one Devil Train to the next. It takes a total of six days to cross all of Mexico and arrive in Tijuana. People travel by hiding between cars, or on the roofs. Some people manage to get on at a station – as Josué and his wife did in Chihuahua – and some get on while the train is moving, taking advantage of its slow speed.
“There were 17 of us on that carriage. When it derailed, we all flew down, among the metal debris.” Something he couldn’t have known was that there were even more people on the Devil Train. Nine were found the next day, trapped inside a freight car. They were treated on the spot and all signed waivers refusing to be taken to the hospital. Their goal was to disappear from the INM's radar, in order to avoid informing the consular authorities of the countries they had run from. Many others – “dozens” according to the first responders who arrived at the scene of the accident – ran away under the cover of darkness to avoid being identified.
Before being transferred along with his son to the Kiki Romero facility in Ciudad Juárez, which takes in those deported from the United States, Josué blamed the governments for the tragedy that befell him: “If they allowed us to travel freely on a bus, so we wouldn’t risk ending up in the hands of criminals or worse, as in our case, none of this would have happened.”
The migration issue continues to be an open wound for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is about to leave a difficult legacy to Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take his place on October 1. And not only in the border cities. In Mexico City too – where there is more of a possibility to find a job, or more likely a small gig – there are several tent cities with thousands of migrants waiting to seek asylum in the United States, stuck in a sort of limbo that can last for months.
To try to solve the “Mexico City issue,” the government announced on Aug. 31 that it will offer bus transfers that will leave from cities in the south of the country to those on the U.S. border, to allow migrants to apply for asylum and wait for an answer. These migrants, who will be able to leave from Villahermosa in Tabasco state, and Tapachula in Chiapas, will be granted a twenty-day transit permit to cross the country.
The migrants will not be driven north on regular buses with regular drivers, but by the National Guard accompanied by staff from the National Migration Institute. “During the journey, the migrants will receive food and water,” the INM explained, ”so they will not have to worry about spending money or have to look for work while waiting for the answer from the U.S.”
However, this solution has met with criticism from NGOs that have pointed out the numerous flaws in this new system, from the dangerousness of northern border cities to the increasingly central role of the National Guard – which has combined federal, military, and naval police into a single body – in managing the migration crisis with a securitarian outlook, as well as possible critical operational issues: there are hundreds of cases of migrants who have an appointment set to seek asylum in the United States and who have been stopped during transit on Mexican territory and sent back south, in a diabolical game of shoots and ladders that forces people to seek alternative routes – such as the Devil Train – to reach the coveted north.
The government’s commitment “to further reduce the number of migrants” showing up directly at the U.S.’s doorstep was particularly appreciated across the border and was heralded by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, who on Thursday morning – just as Josué needed to identify the lifeless body of his son Aaron – emphasized the “excellent work” done by Obrador: “Working together, we managed to reduce the intention to go to the United States by 28 percent among young South Americans and by 14 percent among the poorest segments of the population.” Salazar credits these numbers to the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration, adopted in July 2022 at the urging of the Biden administration, officially breaking with Trump's unilateral policy.
However, behind the principles outwardly touted, such as “cooperation,” “collaboration” and “protection of persons,” little has actually changed, with Biden's decision to keep Title 42 in place, the controversial health-related measure adopted during the pandemic that allows for the automatic deportation of migrants attempting to cross the border, resulting in the loss of any right to asylum in the U.S.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/la-bestia-dei-migranti on 2024-09-07