Translated by Courtney Webster
There is no break for them. Every minute, they risk their lives after they leave their homes in some town in Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and, of course, in some community or neighborhood in Mexico. Their death or disappearance is not even news, unless it is so scandalous that it cannot be kept quiet, or the number is difficult to conceal: 72 murdered, for example [in Tamaulipas, near the U.S. border, in April 2011].
The quest for the “American dream” can overcome anything. “Travelling across Mexico is what is difficult; over there it is different,” they say, or rather, they imagine. From the southern border of Chiapas to the front line defining passage into the United States, the dangers migrants encounter do not diminish. Talk of good intentions and laws do not reach them. And because of this, every so often, a light appears in the road as lodging or a place to eat, a refuge where they can rest from weariness and find something to eat, but lately these places are not safe.
Last week, in the middle of the trip, at a train station in Huehuetoca, in the state of Mexico, they were harmed again. On this occasion, they were neither members of organized crime nor neighbors bothered by their presence, but rather an operation by four patrols made up of National Institute of Migration (INM) agents and police from the municipal guard and the state of Mexico, who entered the San José Huehuetoca dining room for migrants and, ignoring laws protecting them in lodging areas, took action against them. This dining room had been strengthened at the time when the assaults began on the Lechería shelter at the next train stop. They do not only receive food there everyday, but also company, a friendly hand that says they are not alone.
The statement from the group Ustedes Somos Nosotros [You Are Us] says that the raid was carried out outside of the dining room, but the municipal agents banged on the door violently and also entered the facilities, from which they took at least three more migrants by force (at least 30 others were detained in the vicinity). Outside, the scene was devastating: agents captured migrants running on the train tracks and through the streets of Huehuetoca to keep themselves safe. Some were able to escape, others were unlucky and were captured and detained.
Article 76 of the Migration Law was violated, but, up to now, no action has been taken against the authorities that did it.
“The institute will not be able to perform verifications in areas where migrants are found lodged by civil society organizations or people who perform humanitarian work, aid or protection of migrants,” says the law that was broken.All those responsible must comply. Spanish original