HUEHUETOCA, MEXICO, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Several dozen migrants retreated in frustration from train tracks outside Mexico City, blocked by Mexican authorities from traveling in freight cars, in a major new effort to stem the flow of people heading north.
Thousands of people have arrived at the US-Mexico border in recent days and crossed north, many of them after undertaking dangerous journeys on freight trains known as “The Beast.”
Mexican rail operator Ferromex suspended 60 trains this week due to the influx of people, and Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) has deployed agents to discourage people from boarding.
On a railroad track next to a garbage dump in Huehuetoca, a town north of Mexico City, about 40 INM agents in more than a dozen vans drove along the tracks to cut off access to migrants, and sent a drone to locate others who had slipped away into the surrounding hills.
“They ran us away, (told us) to get away from the train tracks,” Jason, a Venezuelan migrant who asked to be identified only by his first name, said Friday. “We no longer have resources,” he added.
The migrants, laden with backpacks and jugs of water, made their way through tall grass under the scorching sun to retreat on foot to the nearest town.
The INM said it would work with Ferromex, owned by the Grupo México conglomerate, to identify strategic points to discourage migrants from boarding trains, which it said puts lives at risk.
Despite the risks of climbing on the roofs of closed carriages or huddling in open-air carriages, many migrants say they cannot afford other options and fear being extorted on the roads or being sent back to the country by immigration agents. South of Mexico.
Milagros Narváez, also from Venezuela, said INM agents told the migrants they had to turn around, and that she was desperate after struggling for almost a month to find a way to reach the northern border.
“It has been an odyssey being here in Mexico,” he said. “We want to go on the train to get to the border and cross into the United States to ask for asylum,” she added. (Reporting by José Cortés in Huehuetoca; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City; Editing by William Mallard and Diego Oré)
Source: Ambito
