海角大神

When Walter migrated from coastal Honduras to the United States six years ago, the trip was 鈥渦neventful,鈥� he says.

He rode a bus across Guatemala, hopped freight trains most of the way through Mexico, and crossed into the United States, where for years he supported his extended family back home through construction work.

To be sure, the journey wasn鈥檛 safe or easy. But after returning to Honduras to tend to a family emergency, Walter realized a lot had changed on the migratory path.

鈥淚 was robbed, I was beat up. Someone pointed a gun at me and shot, but thank God, it didn鈥檛 go off,鈥� he says by telephone from Honduras, where he鈥檚 struggled to find work. Walter has tried returning to the US three times 聽this year 鈥� and he鈥檚 been deported each time, he says.

Last summer, as tens of thousands of unaccompanied children fled their homes in Central America and headed toward the US, Mexico launched聽Plan Frontera Sur 鈥撀爄n part, it says, to help reduce human rights violations against migrants crossing the 750-mile border with Guatemala and Belize, as well as to build a more systematized patrol system.

A year later, deportations and detentions on Mexico鈥檚 southern border have risen sharply: Mexico apprehended 92,889 Central American migrants between October 2014 and April 2015. That鈥檚 nearly double the 49,893 apprehended during the same period the year prior.

Some see this is a success 鈥� illegal聽聽since 1972 at the US-Mexico border, and Mexico appears to be inching toward more formal southern聽border entry and exit practices. But it has set off alarm bells for shelter workers and human rights organizations, who worry that migrants are being squeezed into taking greater risks to avoid checkpoints and are increasingly vulnerable to organized crime and corrupt officials.聽

鈥淐entral American migrants are still coming, but they are more invisible now, even to shelters,鈥� says Jose聽Knippen, who researches human rights and migration for Fundar, a Mexico-City based think tank.聽She found that some shelters along the train routes are seeing fewer migrants this year, as聽Plan Frontera Sur聽cracks down on 鈥淭he Beast,鈥� the freight trains that have carried migrants north for decades.聽

鈥淏efore, there were high risks to traveling on the trains, and gangs would extort migrants to ride,鈥� Ms. Knippen says. But at least it was visible.

Scattering on the road

On a recent afternoon, three men wearing baseball caps and dirt-caked shoes聽sit on the side of an isolated highway, near the Guatemalan border. Their bodies slump with exhaustion, but when they see a white pickup truck rumbling toward them, they scatter into the sparse pastures that hug the road.

Efrian Rodriguez pulls over his car and calls out to them: He鈥檚 there to help. Mr. Rodriguez works for Codehutab, a human rights organization in the southern state of Tabasco. He often drives this road 鈥撀爓hich used to be crawling with migrants hitching rides or walking in plain sight 鈥� looking for those he considers most vulnerable. Men like these are clearly traveling without a 鈥済uide鈥� and taking a gamble by sitting in plain sight.

鈥淲e were robbed by the guys we paid to take us here,鈥� says Miguel, the most senior of the farmhands from San Nicolas, Honduras, who were eventually coaxed back to Rodriguez鈥檚 car with bottles of water and promises that he wasn鈥檛 a policeman. Each had paid $5,000 for a network of smugglers to take them north after drought left their families hungry and many in their community without work, Miguel says.聽

They鈥檝e slogged through dense swamps聽and unmarked terrain without food or water for three days, trying to avoid police checkpoints and towns where they might run into criminal gangs.

鈥淚 was going to sit in that spot and hope someone found me, dead or alive,鈥� says Miguel. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 do this anymore.鈥�

By many measures, these men are lucky. In June, more than 200 migrants were violently attacked in two incidents in the states of Veracruz and Sonora, leading Amnesty International to label Mexico a 鈥渄eath trap鈥� for migrants.

Such violence is not new, of course. The shelter where Rodriguez drops the men for the night, on the outskirts of Tenosique, is named after 72 mostly Central American migrants who were kidnapped and massacred by a drug cartel in 2010.

鈥淭he government uses deportation and violence as a deterrent,鈥� says Rodriguez. And he fears聽Frontera Sur聽may be cultivating xenophobia among Mexicans, discouraging locals from lending a hand to migrants in need.

According to public record requests by the聽聽Animal Politico at prosecutors鈥� offices in four southern states, reports of robberies against migrants went up by 81 percent this year. In the state of Oaxaca, robberies and assaults nearly doubled.

And deportations are happening so rapidly that many question whether migrants have the chance to ask for asylum or protection, or report criminal or police abuses.

鈥淭he message the government is sending with detaining and deporting migrants quickly is that the migrants aren鈥檛 the priority of this policy,鈥� Knippen says. 鈥淣othing will happen to you if you steal from a migrant because they will be deported anyway.鈥�

'Good results'

In May, Interior Secretary聽Miguel 脕ngel Osorio Chong said Plan Frontera Sur was already showing "very good results."

Beginning last year, Guatemalans and Belizeans became eligible for free visitor鈥檚 visas, enabling them to legally cross into Mexico to work or trade for a few days at a time. The move was criticized for not including Hondurans and Salvadorans, whose nations don鈥檛 border Mexico but who are highly represented among migrants heading north.

鈥淚鈥檓 aware of the criticisms, but I see [Plan Frontera Sur] as a positive development in terms of Mexico getting more of a handle on who is coming into the country,鈥� says Duncan Wood, director of the Mexico Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center, and who visited the border in March this year.聽鈥淵ou鈥檝e actually now got a Mexican strategy for the southern border, when before you had a policy vacuum.鈥�

But 17-year-old Manuel, who says he left Honduras because of gang violence, says he was robbed and beaten by border police when crossing into Mexico.

聽Standing outside the migrant shelter, Manuel says he and the migrants milling around him have run away from 鈥渉ell鈥� in their home countries, where violence, poverty, and unemployment are rampant.

We do it, he says, only to 鈥渓ive through another hell on this route.鈥�