“But let’s go for the legal way first to see what happens.”Īfter clambering down from the final train stop, Zambrano picked up his small bookbag, containing all he has on the journey and prepares to head to the border crossing, walking or perhaps on a truck. “They ignore you when you’re trying to do it legally,” he said. But he will try to cross the border again. He said he has tried and been sent back before. He has the address of a friend in Baltimore along with a printout in Spanish of all the circumstances under which he would be allowed to stay in the US.
If you have breakfast, you don’t have enough money for lunch,” said Zambrano, a chef who said he would try any kind of work in the United States. Omar Zambrano said he left Venezuela six months ago to escape the crime and violence there, coupled with the economic crisis. Once there, we can see what to do, because we don’t have friends, family, anyone who can take us in.” “We need to get there first, that’s the priority. “We don’t know for sure,” Felipe replied when asked where they would go. The couple said they left Colombia, ready to sacrifice themselves for the five children they left behind. Those we spoke with had the singular goal of escaping their countries and starting again in the US, whatever process they had to follow.Ĭrossing the border is as far as Felipe and Marcela have thought. The reinstatement of old rules may mean heavier legal penalties, but it is expected to be a longer process.īut the people on the freight train are not talking about US rule changes. Title 42 allowed officials to quickly process people arriving and send many back across the border. The lifting of the US’s Title 42 pandemic-era immigration restriction on Thursday has raised concerns that more people will try to enter the United States. He, his sister and his father, plan to try to cross into the United States this same day. “You can’t sleep here,” Roberto said as he sat, buffeted by the wind, seemingly exhausted but determined as the train neared Ciudad Juarez, the town across the international border from El Paso. There is no shelter from the sun, wind and nighttime cold, but these open trucks are preferred as they offer some protection from falling off. But this is still the preferred kind of train car, as it at least offers some protection from falling off.Ī traveler rests on the cargo. The riders flatten cardboard boxes and use dirty clothing to try to give themselves some padding against the hard, uneven surface.
There are a couple dozen people in this freight car alone, with dozens more riding on top of and within the other cars. The truck contains metal construction beams, covered in plastic. But home, for now, was an open train car heading north. In other circumstances, she would be celebrating her quinceañera at home with friends and family.
He said this was the seventh train he had ridden on top of in the past 12 days as he, his father and his sister tried to find a new life. Roberto was still sick himself, wearing a mask to protect others from his coughs. “I brought them here to Mexico but they got sick, they almost died,” he said. Roberto fled the country with his two young children, he said, becoming emotional as he talked about them. Roberto is one of the tens of thousands of migrants who have been making the perilous journey to the US-Mexico border ahead of Thursday night’s expiration of the Covid-era immigration rule known as Title 42. “Due to crime in my country, we can’t work, we can’t do anything,” he said. Roberto, 23, told CNN he was escaping from Honduras, where the US State Department says violent gang activity is rife and police are ineffective. But still, he says, this brutal journey is worth it. There is no shade from the burning sun in the day, nowhere to keep warm in the perishing cold of the night. On top of the rumbling freight train, the young man says he has been attacked and robbed. Aboard a train heading to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico CNN
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