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Mexico’s crackdown on migrants riding cargo trains has families with children pounding pavement on their way to border wall

by: Julian Resendiz

Posted: Jan 2, 2024 / 12:25 PM EST

Updated: Jan 2, 2024 / 12:25 PM EST

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico (Border Report) – Dariany Blanco’s Christmas gift was being forced off a Mexican cargo train and given a choice of going back to her country or cover the last 200 miles of her journey to the United States on foot.

On Thursday, the displaced Venezuelan store owner and her brood took a respite sitting along the tracks near the town of Samalayuca, Chihuahua. A Mexican immigration checkpoint could be seen in the distance. The Blancos and about 20 traveling companions wanted to make sure they had the energy to run past the guards, if necessary.

“We have spent two months crossing Mexico. The cold is unbearable, and we are hungry,” Blanco told Border Report during an interview atop the tracks. “They stopped the train (Dec. 24). The engine drove off and they left us there in the desert. They didn’t care.”

Hundreds of migrants were arriving atop cargo trains to Juarez almost daily. That drove up Border Patrol apprehension numbers and was beginning to make El Paso, Texas, yet another hotspot along a U.S.-Mexico border in crisis.

Just after the White House announced an emergency meeting between Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, trains stopped running south of Juarez or proceeded north without migrants being allowed atop boxcars. In the past few days, some migrants have found ways to board the trains, but many are still proceeding on foot.

Chihuahua authorities estimate some 2,500 migrants have arrived in this Mexican border state since Christmas Eve. The governor of the state told local news media on Thursday another 3,000 are on the way.

Politics aside, Blanco said there is no going back to Venezuela.

“We sold food. Rice, flour. We had a small warehouse. […] You had to pay a fine, if not, they damage your home, they hurt a relative. They assault them, they threaten them bad,” she said.

The woman then got up and the group kept going along the tracks partly obscured by bushes – past the checkpoint where Mexican officials were too busy checking trucks to notice them. One father and his son took off running, just in case.

About 100 miles to the south, another group walked openly along Federal Highway 45. They waved at passing motorists for a ride, but no one stopped.

“We are walking on this desert with three small children,” said Petra Sofia Camacho, from Maracaibo, Venezuela. “Yesterday, my feet felt frozen; I thought they would crack. The children avoided hypothermia only because we stayed at a gas station. We were too cold.”

Camacho, the matriarch of an extended family hoping to find a better life in Denver, Colorado, said the group rode trains and buses as far north as they could. She said Mexican police and criminals took all their money, to the point that the last time corrupt cops shook them down they asked them for $2 to $3 a head.

“We are migrants, we don’t have permits, but they should not treat us this way,” the matriarch of the group said. “One of them yelled at us, ‘Money! Money! Money! They said we should have CBP One. We tried filing the application, but the site was no good.”

Pro-immigrant nonprofits confirm migrants are routinely targeted for extortion in Mexico, most often by criminals but sometimes by authorities as well. Mexico’s National Migration Institute urges any migrant who has been the victim of a crime to file a formal complaint.

Camacho and some of her traveling companions said they will endure whatever hardship comes next as long as they make it to the U.S. border wall.

“I am going to Denver. I want to work, to achieve my goals. It is hard in Venezuela. I want to give my son a better life, so he can study,” Camacho told Border Report. “Also, I am sick. I have diabetes and hypertension. There are no resources for my medication, for my treatment. And I want my small child to study and for my older son and my husband to find work. We only come to work. We don’t come to harm anyone.”

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