Aboard ‘the Beast’ on a journey to America

The migrants boarded the rusted wagons of a freight train three days ago, hoping this would be the last leg of their seemingly endless journey to America.

As the sun set on the Chihuahuan Desert, exhaustion gave way to optimism: they were approaching the border. A cheer erupted. Adolescents waved to the passing cars.

“Viva Mexico!” someone yelled.

Crowds of people have been rushing to the border in recent weeks as a pandemic-era health restriction that the United States used to quickly deport migrants who crossed the border illegally is coming to an end. People usually came by bus and sometimes by plane.

But in Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, they’re increasingly arriving on a freight train so dangerous it’s known as “the beast” or “the train of death” because so many migrants have fallen off it. and got lost. limbs or killed.

Most of the riders on Monday came from Venezuela and had traveled for months to reach Mexico, crossing multiple countries and an unforgiving 70-mile jungle connecting Central and South America. On the way, some were robbed and kidnapped.

They secretly boarded a train in Mexico City, saying it was the only way they knew they could get to the north. The metal walls of the train became so cold at night that it was difficult to sleep, and so hot during the day that it was painful to touch them with bare skin.

There was no respite from the desert sun, so mothers bent over their children or made makeshift shelters with whatever they carried to keep the heat at bay.

As Juárez’s city limits came into view on Monday afternoon, mood soared. A young migrant couple who met on the road leaned in for a long kiss. Toddlers screamed, perhaps sensing their parents’ sudden lightness.

As soon as the wheels came to a stop in downtown Juárez, the migrants scrambled out and threw their backpacks at their fellow travelers who were already on the ground. A few men helped a father gently lower his sleeping baby.

Like most migrants arriving today, they hope their stay in Mexico will be short-lived.

Some migrants say they have heard the border will be open when the pandemic health rule, known as Title 42, is lifted Thursday night. Others believe the opposite, that it will be completely closed. Neither is correct, yet many people believe they have no time to waste and head straight for the United States.

Shelter operators in Mexico say many of their beds have become empty in recent days. People shower and eat something but then head for the border. Abandoned houses once filled with migrant tents now sit mostly empty.

Two local pastors who help house migrants, Juan Fierro and Miguel González Ponce, estimate that the number of people living in camps on the streets of Juárez has fallen by about 80 percent in recent weeks.

Some of the migrants on the train boarded a public bus that they believed would drop them off near a specific part of the border where others had gathered. Instead, they were deposited a two-hour walk away.

A 13-year-old girl named Caroline said she just wanted to see her mother, who had emigrated to New York City months earlier. A young mother, Dailimar, 18, was carrying her infant daughter and walking alongside her mother and half a dozen other family members.

A boy named Miguel, 7, bounced his way down the gravel path, responsible for carrying a plastic bag filled with crucial cargo: his little sister’s diapers. His parents each carried his younger siblings and other belongings in their arms.

“Mom,” Miguel asked, his little arms gesturing wildly toward the border fence in the distance, “are we going to the United States?”

As it turned out, they really went to the United States – or at least to American soil. The migrants eventually found the passage they were looking for and, like hundreds of others, simply walked across the border.

The Rio Grande, which separates the United States and Mexico, is shallow and calm in parts of Juárez, making it easy to navigate. Once people reach the middle of the river, they are technically in the United States.

US authorities have laid concertina wire across the riverbank, but migrants have punched holes in it and have gathered in large groups on the US side.

They, like US officials, have no idea what exactly will happen when Title 42 expires. For now, they remain seated, sleeping on the ground, trapped between the border and the massive wall that still stands between them and most of America.