New York Times:
By Randal C. Archibold
July 20, 2014
SAN
PEDRO SULA, Honduras — The wave of Central American child migrants
heading to the United States in recent months, feeding a humanitarian
crisis there, is showing some
signs of abating.
Bus
operators here say they are noticing a decline in the number of
unaccompanied children headed to the border. The police have detained
fewer young migrants at checkpoints.
And the United States Border Patrol has reported a dip in the number of
children and families apprehended in Texas, where migrants have been
arriving in droves for months.
Since
October, about 57,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended
across the southwest border, double the number during a similar period
the previous year.
It
is too soon to say definitively whether the mass migration has
relented, but officials are hopeful that it may be slowing as new
efforts by the authorities to stop
the flow take root and as word spreads about the perils of the journey
to the United States, where migrants are unlikely to find legal refuge.
“It
has gone down about 30 percent, the number of children we see passing
through here,” said Marvin Lopez, a manager of one of the most commonly
used bus lines here.
“Not nearly as many families.”
At
a police substation on the road to the border with Guatemala, which is
about a 45-minute ride from the bus station, officers said that they had
been detaining 15 to
20 minors a day in recent months, but that in the past couple of weeks
it had dropped to two or three.
One
night last week, Maria Enriques was one of two women who were detained
with their children when officers stopped the truck, with Guatemala
license plates, in which
they were traveling without appropriate documents for the children.
“I
was just taking him to his father in Guatemala, but now I guess we just
have to go home,” said Ms. Enriquez, the mother of a 1-year-old boy.
“They are saying nobody
can go north unless both parents go, but how can we do this when so
many of us are single parents here?”
Honduras,
the source of the largest proportion of recent child migrants, has
moved to make it harder for children to leave the country without
authorization. It has forbidden
the sale to minors of bus tickets to the border and assigned additional
police officers, including a specially trained unit, to patrol bus
routes and frequent border crossing points.
Some
migrants may be veering off the beaten path to try more remote and
perilous routes, traversing rivers and slipping through dense forest and
brush where officers patrol
less often. They are motivated to flee this city, which gang violence
and deep poverty have made one of the most dangerous in the world, by
false rumors that they can get legal papers to reside in the United
States.
But
many of the potential migrants, who would take a succession of buses
and trains north, said recently that they had heard the chances of
making it to the United States
were decreasing.
Last
week, the Border Patrol station in McAllen, Tex., reported decreasing
numbers of people in detention. About 500 migrants were being held last
week, compared with
double that number most days in June.
The
Border Patrol chief for the Rio Grande Valley, Kevin W. Oaks, said at a
news conference Thursday that the flow of unaccompanied minors had
dropped in the past two
weeks from 200 apprehended most days last month to only 80 last
Wednesday.
In
addition, the United States began a new effort last week to speed
deportations of parents with children who had recently crossed, sending
80 people aboard two planes
back to Honduras, and other flights to Guatemala and El Salvador.
Many
people who are deported vow to try again, and many do, often several
times before they reach the United States. But some of the people who
traveled recently with
children, and the children themselves, said they were surprised by the
difficulty and expenses of the trek.
“I
will never do it again,” said Victoria Cordova, 30, who was deported
from the United States last week with her 9-year-old daughter. She
recalled a harrowing journey
that included overcrowded shelters in the United States with little to
eat and a confusing stream of paperwork to sign, including a document in
English that she did not understand but signed anyway.
After
signing the paper in a shelter in New Mexico, she said, she and several
other women with children were told they would be boarding a plane back
to Honduras, leading
many of them to break down into tears.
Ms.
Cordova has since returned to her home in a dangerous neighborhood in
Tegucigalpa. She worries most now about repaying the $6,000 cost for the
trip that she borrowed
from neighbors, including gang members expecting quick repayment,
though she is unemployed.
Other
people, children among them, who were sent back from Mexico, where the
authorities have also stepped up deportations, said they would like to
try again to emigrate
but had no money and were daunted by the journey.
“I
wanted to be with my dad, but the trip is too long and hard,” said
Aidan, 13, who left a shelter here with his grandparents after he was
deported from Mexico last week.
Orlin
Flores, 14, was trying to reunite with his parents in California but
was apprehended a few days into his trip and deported from Mexico.
“I’m
not sure if I could do it again; it was scary, and I didn’t have the
money to pay all the cops to let me go,” Orlin said, making reference to
the bribes many migrants
must pay along their illegal journey.
Mexico
has said it will take action to slow the migrant flow, pledging to stop
people from stowing away on freight trains, a common tactic to head
north, and to increase
patrols of its border. It promised steps to reduce corruption of police
officers but has not provided details.
Guatemala
said it had increased the number of police officers and soldiers at its
borders. El Salvador began a public awareness campaign aimed at
deterring parents from
sending their children north alone, and it is planning to redouble
efforts to arrest smugglers.
Still,
people who provide services to returning migrants here said they
believed that many would find ways around new law enforcement obstacles.
Many of the deportees
and advocates for them are skeptical that the government will follow
through on pledges of scholarship money and jobs to keep people from
fleeing.
“They
will migrate again unless there is something here for them, jobs and
schools and a lack of violence,” said Sor Valdette Willeman, director of
the Center for Assistance
to Migrants, the nongovernmental organization in Honduras that assists
deportees at airports. “I am afraid without those things they will
eventually try again.”
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