Kyla Uribe

Professor Shahrazad Encinias

CAS 115

21 September 2023

P1.1: Central American Migrants

In “Central American Migrants Are On A Word-Of-Mouth Exodus To The U.S.” by Tracy

Wilkinson conveys the treacherous journey that Central American migrants have to face when
crossing into the United States. The travel is 3,000 miles or more to reach the U.S. border and the
only way of transportation is riding the roof of a train car. This trip can take up to several weeks
or even months.

As Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalan migrants take on this voyage to seek a better
education and work life they endured beatings, sexual assault, and torture. Many individuals had
to pay bribes of more than $100 to the Mexican police and gangs in order to make it through the
segmented routes to get to the states. If they didn’t deliver they would be thrown off the train or
even brutally killed. Obama, the POTUS during that time urged that the migrants trying to cross
the border into the US will be returned to Central America. Central Americans who were
crossing over were quickly detained by the Mexican authorities and were held in “migratory
stations” maximum security prisons strictly for migrants, for months forcing them to pay for
food while undergoing torture. During the grueling route through Mexico, many migrants relied
on priests and people for shelter and food. For the last decade, Adrian Rodriguez has been
making daily trips to the tracks to deliver food, drinks, medicine, and clothing to the migrant
riders. He encountered many children who had been abandoned by parents and siblings, one in
particular was a two 3-year-olds who could barely even speak but knew that the train was the
only way to get them to a better and safer life.

While reading this article by the LA Times, I began to connect and resonate with it. In
highschool, I read a book called “Enrique's Journey” by Sonia Nazario. It was about a Honduran
boy who travels on the top of trains facing violence from bandits, gangsters, immigration
officers, and corrupt police to be reunited with his mother in the states. It made me realize how
unfair America’s government is as well as Mexico’s because any other immigrant, say
Europeans, never have to experience the inhumane and perilous conditions that Central
Americans have to go through even though they have the same goal in mind: to reach the land of
freedom and opportunity. They try so hard to force undocumented Central Americans from
crossing into the United States when there are still 29% of undocumented individuals who are
not from there. What really struck me is that everyone knows the violence that these countries go
through and no country not even America wants to help bring in migrants who are putting their
lives on the line to seek this dream that was ever so promised by the U.S.