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WHY DO THEY MAKE THE
TRIP?
Ed Palmer:
They're after a dream. They don't recognize the
risk because they don't know about it, but the risk
for them is not achieving the dream.
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Ed Palmer is a transplanted American
who runs a railroad in southern Mexico. There are
no passenger trains in this part of the world -
just freight. People are too poor to pay the fares
to go anywhere. But as every train leaves the station
hundreds of youngsters jump aboard the freight cars
hoping to reach a better life in the North.
Illegal immigrants have been coming to the U.S.
from Central America for decades. In the 1980's
when wars ravaged Central America, hundreds of thousands
of people were forced to seek asylum in the north.
But now they're leaving home for another reason:
poverty. As the wars ended natural disasters like
Hurricane Mitch and the El Salvador earthquake further
impoverished a population that was already living
on the brink. According to the World Bank, 75% of
Central Americans live on less than $2 a day. The
average worker makes only $900 dollars a year.
Honduras, the home country of the boys portrayed
in RUN FOR YOUR LIFE is one the poorest countries
in the Western hemisphere. Over half of the population
is unemployed. And in rural areas, 66% of the population
is living in extreme poverty (on less than $1 a
day). More than one-third of the population doesn't
have access to safe drinking water and almost one-third
are illiterate.
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Every year approximately 400,000
economic migrants - mainly Mexican and Central American
- cross the U.S. border illegally. Young people are
leaving in search of employment, higher wages and
better opportunities for education.
Most already have family members living illegally
in the U.S. or Canada who will help them find a job
when they arrive. Ed
Palmer: They're looking for an economic opportunity.
Who wants to work for a dollar a day or two dollars
a day for the rest of your life and not have any
chance to grow like their cousins in Chicago, in
Los Angeles. To have a car, to have a house, to
have medical insurance. They have an opportunity
to start their own business - a thing that many
of these people don't have back home. They're searching
for a higher level of economic security and until
we can give it too them in their home countries
these young kids are going to keep coming.
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