THE JOURNEY
ARREST IN MEXICO
The Mexican government says that everyone who
is arrested in Mexico will be deported.
The deportation centre in
southern Mexico looks like a bus station. It holds
hundreds of young people who outsmarted the police.
Then their luck ran out.
It appears that the government crackdown is working.
By some accounts 95% of migrants are now being
caught.
Sonya Nazario is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
with the Los Angles Times who's written a series
of articles about Central American youth who travel
North in search of a better life. (read
her articles)
Sonya Nazario: In
Honduras the poverty is just so incredibly grinding,
mothers talk about feeding their children sugar
water for dinner. People are willing to do a lot
to leave that kind of poverty. (read more about
poverty
in Central America)
Many of the people arrested by Mexican
police are under age. They are travelling by themselves
and taking an enormous risk.
Sonya Nazario:
It is the heart of darkness.
They are robbed repeatedly. They're beaten up. Women
and girls are often gang raped by bandits and gangsters.
They don't want to go back defeated to their home
country.
Journalist Jorge Flores found out that most of the
youngsters who are deported will keep on trying
until they succeed.
But, despite the official line, it is possible to
avoid deportation. Most migrants with a little bit
of money can bribe their way out of jail. Many Mexican
police are corrupt and see the immigrants as a way
to make a little extra money.
Sonya Nazario: The
immigration authorities would just line everybody
up against the wall, put them down and take all
their money. Sometimes, they'll even take their
clothes or shoes. It's just standard operating practice.
There is now an effort by the Mexican government
to professionalize the police and immigration authorities.
Bribery is how Quique and his friends avoided the
deportation centre.
Quique: They
were going to turn us over and send us back but
we begged and begged.
He was arrested along
with ten others. Quique and his friend had been
robbed days earlier and didn't have a cent. But
a 14 year old boy in his group had 100 pesos - about
ten American dollars. It was enough.
Quique:
They took the money and let us go. They gave us
some medicine, mangoes and soda. They even stopped
the train for us.
They were back on the road to 'el norte'.
