“I told my brother, if you want to go, let’s go,” said the 19-year-old, who asked CNN not to say his last name.
They filled two backpacks with a set of clothes and a toothbrush, each. Carlos brought a razor. Wilfredo still doesn’t shave.
With 2,000 Mexican pesos (about $ 100) between them, they told the news to their mother.
“She was crying,” said Carlos. “She asked us not to go because she would miss us. It was very sad to leave the house, not knowing if you are going to die or where you are going to end up.”
Central America’s trip to the United States is infamous and dangerous. Less than a week after his departure – talking to CNN and shuddering as he tried to keep the blood running down his forehead and dripping into his right eye – Carlos’ fears would be confirmed.
Number of migrants on the rise
CNN met the two brothers in Mexico. Guatemalan immigration authorities have already taken all the money they had on the way, they said. Still, when they joined dozens of other migrants at the La 72 migrant shelter, just beyond the border in the small town of Tenosique, they were in a good mood.
Wilfredo watched from outside while Carlos took off a sticky shirt to take part in a shirt vs. football match. skins, immigrants from Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua leaving their travels aside for a moment, a brief pause for the beautiful game.
Carlos’ team won, and he was all smiling while talking to us. “There are a lot of people besides us who decided to leave and migrate, in search of a better life,” he said.
Each night, a line forms in front of the main entrance to the shelter. On a recent night, dozens of people waited patiently for their temperatures to be measured and to wash their hands, orders for entry during an ongoing pandemic.
“This year we saw a huge increase in flow during the first two months of the year,” said Father Gabriel Romero, director of the shelter. “People are no longer afraid to leave their countries because of Covid-19 because they prefer not to die of hunger, violence or lack of work.”
The shelter registered about 5,500 people in January and February, according to Romero. They registered only 3,000 in the entire year 2020.
“I think it is a time of humanitarian emergency,” said Romero.
Romero says that if the pace continues – and he expects it to continue – he will be able to see more migrants in his shelter this year than ever before.
Because now?
Over the course of five days of reporting on the ground near the Mexico-Guatemala border, CNN spoke to dozens of migrants. They said the reasons for the increase were numerous, but everyone agreed that poverty was at its center.
The struggling economies in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala before the pandemic were further decimated by Covid-19. Finding work has never been easy, they say, but never more difficult than during a generational health crisis.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced. With nowhere to go, the vast majority of migrants told CNN that hurricanes and their aftermath played an important role in the decision to move north.
A third reason also emerged – there is no longer a Trump White House.
“He is no longer a racist president,” said José Alduvas Moncada Salinas, who spoke to CNN while resting along the set of railroads on which he was walking. “He looked at us like we were animals.”
Trump, who has made anti-immigration rhetoric a central part of his political appeal since the early days of his 2015 campaign, has followed a series of policies to curb immigration.
The Biden government is trying to facilitate Trump’s more restrictive immigration policies. He also says he will admit more asylum seekers, but it will take time to do so. Citing a pandemic and hoping to prevent an increase in the border, American officials have publicly said that now is not the time for migrants to arrive.
This did not deter any of the migrants CNN spoke with. Most said they believed a Biden presidency would give them a better chance of entering and said they would not wait for the pandemic to subside.
“That is the difference, that suddenly the new president is noble with a good heart,” said Moncada Salinas.
Mexico has stepped up its immigration enforcement in recent years, initially motivated by economic threats from the Trump administration. The presence of his National Guard continued along the southern border and refused migrants free passage in transit to the United States. But thousands are still finding ways to get through.
‘One of the most dangerous trips in the world’
Carlos and Wilfredo left with a group from the La 72 shelter at dawn the next day, at a fast and optimistic pace, trying to cover as many kilometers as possible before the midday heat arrived.
They did not leave for any specific reason – poverty, hurricanes and Biden were part of that, they said. “If you have nothing to live with at home, you come here to look for work,” said Carlos, naturally.
They took a route along a set of unused railway tracks. A train dubbed “The Beast” used to circulate here and the migrants boarded, taking a ride north. A construction project has stopped the train for now, but migrants are still following in its tracks.
“It is one of the most dangerous trips in the world,” said Rubén Figueroa, an activist with the migrant advocacy group Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano. “The migrants’ route is infested by cartels and local criminal groups who see migrants as commodities, so they are victims of aggression, extortion, sexual assault, kidnapping and murder.”
A few hours later, Carlos and Wilfredo emerged from their route. It was clear that they were attacked. Several members of the group, including the two brothers, were bleeding.
“We were a little behind our group and when we reached them, we saw the thieves holding them at gunpoint,” said Carlos, telling CNN that four armed men and a woman had beaten them.
Carlos and Wilfredo tried to run, but they didn’t have time. A sniper hit Wilfredo first.
“One of them was carrying a small gun in his hand and I said, ‘I’m not afraid of you’, and that’s when he got it right [Wilfredo] and then I went after him. I don’t know how he hit me, ”said Carlos.
Carlos, Wilfredo and another man were all whipped by a pistol. Wilfredo had a severe cut on his head. A photo of the wound was shown, a former surgeon told CNN that he would expect more than half a dozen stitches or staples to be needed.
Carlos and the other man were bleeding from swollen wounds, each on the right side of the head.
Their attackers took what little money the group had and spread it out.
Shortly after Carlos told CNN this story, a white van sped down the dusty road. It was from the National Institute of Migration of Mexico, the agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws.
The group screamed and ran, spreading through the forest.
Better days ahead … maybe
That night, the brothers and the group walked more than 12 hours, about eight hundred meters away from the next migrant shelter commonly used on the route.
The group took a break in the morning, having an instant coffee offered by a woman who owns a small bodega along the train tracks.
Migrants spend “day and night,” she told CNN. “This group just arrived now, this afternoon more will come. I would give them more, but I haven’t even cooked for myself today.”
The brothers sat in front of their store, exhausted. The trip was still worth it, Carlos insisted. Eventually, they would arrive in the United States and he would find work – although he does not have a real plan for how to do this or in what state he will work.
Wilfredo, stunned and quiet, was not so sure.
“I don’t know if it’s worth it,” he said. “But wherever my brother goes, I will always be there.”