TLAPACOYAN, Mexico – Initially, Mexican migrants Pablo Ortega and Julio Lopez profited from smuggling a first-class ticket at the U. S. price: loose beers, shelters with video games, even a week on a hunting ranch.
On June 27, he finished his special remedy: crowded and breathless in the back of a suffocating semi-trailer in Texas with more than 60 other migrants.
Their travels, reconstructed by Reuters through dozens of text messages, photos and videos with their families, offer a rare window into the world of human trafficking: a multibillion-dollar industry that is deadly.
Ortega agreed to pay $13,000 and Lopez $12,000, their families said. That’s above the $2,000 to $7,000 average for Mexican immigrants, according to 2019 Mexican government data.
As they embarked separately on their quest for a better life, they were told they would do it alone or in small groups, their families said. At least one other victim, Jazmin Bueso, 37, from Honduras, also paid for the more expensive trip, her brother said. Reuters.
Ortega, a jovial 19-year-old dressed in baseball caps over his black hair, left in mid-May by bus from his home in Tlapacoyan, a mountainous town in the southeastern state of Veracruz surrounded by banana plantations.
Her friend had just become pregnant, and Ortega decided to go to Florida, where her mother lived. There, you could earn money to send home to care for your first child and save to build a house.
“You probably wouldn’t cross the desert. . . there will be no danger,” recalls Adriana González, having heard the smuggler tell her husband on the phone before leaving. “The one you have is guaranteed, one hundred percent safe. “
Violence, poverty, and COVID-19 have accelerated migration from Latin America to the United States. Crossings from Mexico have reached a record 1. 7 million so far in the fiscal year through June, while deaths were the worst on record with 728 last year and are expected to maintain speed or even exceed it in 2022.
Seeking to escape america’s ever-expanding border infrastructure, smugglers are turning to riskier methods, adding an explosion in the use of giant 18-wheeler devices.
Border deaths related to vehicles and transportation rose faster than any cause, between 2020 and 2021, according to U. N. data.
To pay for smuggling costs, Ortega’s mother, Rafaela Alvarez, 37, sold a cell phone house. But when he arrived at the border, guards said they were looking for an additional $2,000 to take him in a safer direction avoiding the desert, crossing the Rio Grande and traveling in a truck with 3 other people to Houston.
Alvarez pawned gold jewelry to find the extra silver. He remembers in particular that he warned his son not to get into a crowded caravan.
“The air is going to run out,” she told her in a video call from the structure where she worked and hoped he would too.
Over the next two weeks, Ortega sent photos and videos from a spacious, well-decorated space where he played video games and smugglers presented him with pizza and Tecate beer as he waited for the border patrol presence to subside.
Regardless, Ortega crossed the Rio Grande on May 29, but a U. S. agent caught him past the shore and sent him back to Mexico.
After flying in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, smugglers took him to the border with the city of Matamoros.
For 4 days, Lopez stayed in a small concrete space with two other migrants. The smugglers then guided Lopez across the Rio Grande in a boat and car, as promised. But the next day, border agents stopped the car and sent Lopez back to Mexico.
On or around June 14 (his circle of relatives is not entirely certain) Lopez crossed again, this time successfully. In Texas, he walked 3 hours through the desert to a personal hunting lodge near Laredo, where he stayed for about a week. The video Lopez sent to his wife shows a giant wooden house, decorated with an American flag and wild deer skulls. “It’s great,” Lopez says in the video.
Meanwhile, Ortega had tried to cross. But the upper waters of the river made the task difficult. At one point, he saw a migrant drown in the strong current.
On June 17, he donned a red life jacket, gave a thumbs up in a selfie, and boarded a small inflatable boat for what would eventually be a successful trip.
A day later, he celebrated his 20th birthday with a mayonnaise sandwich at a Texas hideaway. Although now on U. S. soil, Ortega’s adventure is not over: the Border Patrol maintains checkpoints up to a hundred miles inside.
“There’s a little bit left (to do),” he wrote to his sister. Two days later, she sent Ortega ultrasound photographs of her baby.
On June 21, Lopez made one last call to alert his circle of relatives that smugglers would soon confiscate his phone. They were about to take him to another ranch where he would wait a few days before smuggling past an internal checkpoint along the way. to San Antonio, Lopez told Gonzalez.
“Tell my kids that I love them and that if I manage, everything will be different,” Gonzalez recalls, referring to Lopez.
Then it ceased.
At 2:50 p. m. On June 27, an 18-wheeler shipping truck with a red 1995 Volvo cab passed through a U. S. government checkpoint. Near Encinal, Texas, 40 miles north of Laredo.
A surveillance photo received through the Mexican government and in a data report shows the driver, dressed in a black striped shirt, leaning out the window with a wide smile.
Just before 6 p. m. , an employee of a commercial domain outside san Antonio, more than a hundred miles to the north, heard a call for help, which he followed to a deserted trailer on the side of a road, according to local officials. .
Lifeguards arrived a few minutes later. The trailer’s open doors revealed piles of bodies hot to the touch, authorities said. Other bodies were discovered on the floor and near the brush, according to court documents.
Temperatures in San Antonio had risen to 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39. 4 degrees Celsius) that afternoon, but first responders discovered there was no water or air conditioning in the trailer.
The death toll rose to 53, adding 26 Mexicans, 21 Guatemalans and six Hondurans. Police discovered the suspected driver hiding near the victims, allegedly under the influence of methamphetamine.
A U. S. Grand Jury The U. S. Department of Homeland Security has charged 4 men with charges similar to the incident, ranging from illegal possession of firearms to smuggling charges that can face life in prison or the death penalty.
By nightfall, the terrible news had spread through Mexico and Central America.
Since his death, Gonzalez said he can’t afford to care for his autistic son.
Alvarez, fearing the worst, called Ortega’s smugglers more than 30 times to verify that his son was alive. They blocked his number.
When Alvarez traveled to San Antonio to identify Ortega’s body, it was the first time he noticed his son since 2014.
At the funeral in his hometown, a ballad was played reminiscent of migrants who drowned in a Texas van 35 years ago. Ortega’s circle of relatives threw red roses at the grave as the words resounded: “The air began to run out, and there it’s not something they can just do. No one has heard those cries for help.
She is due to be born on December 31.
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