When 149 migrants were taken to a bridge by US border guards, they had no idea where they were being taken. Many broke down crying when they learned they were back in Mexico.
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – They arrived in groups of 30, children dangling from adults’ arms, and were escorted across the Paso del Norte bridge by United States border guards on Thursday afternoon until they reached halfway point. Then they were handed over to the Mexican authorities.
“Where are we?” A father asked a journalist at the New York Times.
“Ciudad Juarez” came the answer.
The father, who had not been told where he and the rest of the migrant group were being taken by US officials, looked confused.
“Mexico,” the journalist clarified.
Faces twisted from confusion to fear. Many of the parents began to sob and tears of frustration fell on the children who cradled them.
“You betrayed us!” yelled one parent.
“They promised they would help us!” another moaned.
Most of the 149 migrants brought across the bridge on Thursday had entered the United States from Reynosa, a border town in northern Mexico, where they were arrested by US border guards. They were then flown 600 miles to El Paso, Texas, where they were put on buses, driven to the border, and walked to the bridge.
No one was informed that they were being sent back to Mexico.
As they crossed the bridge that connected El Paso to Ciudad Juarez, they realized that everything they had risked on their journey – their lives, the well-being of their children, the loans they had bankrupted themselves – was for them to take up smuggling the United States – fell apart.
Below, Elvin Bautista Pérez (26) from Honduras and his daughter Mía (5) are trying to text his family after the deportation.
Vilma Iris Peraza, 28, struggled to carry Erick, her 2-year-old, pantless, in a dirty diaper, and her daughter Adriana, 5.
Adriana was standing in a pool of vomit on top of the bridge when Mexican officers surrounded her. The braids that Mrs. Peraza had so diligently woven into her daughter’s hair were a frizzy mess. The mother wanted her daughter to look her best for her new life in America.
Mrs. Peraza tried to comfort Adriana and gave her a sip of water when Erick wiggled in her arms. Eventually she collapsed on the bridge, hugged her children and cried.
“We couldn’t get through my dear,” Ms. Peraza told her husband on the phone when she was finally able to connect. “Here in Mexico we all cry. I don’t know what we’re gonna do. “
The family from Copán, Honduras, had tried days earlier to reunite with Ms. Peraza’s husband in Nashville. They have been a family divided since he left to work in Tennessee two years ago. The smugglers had billed them $ 12,000 to cross – the equivalent of nearly three years’ salary in Honduras – and they no longer minded huddled on the bridge.
“I just want to reconnect with my husband to give our children a better future,” said Ms. Peraza. “There is a lot of poverty in my country, nothing can be done.”
Above, US Customs and Border Protection officers escort migrants back to Mexico at the border crossing in Ciudad Juarez.
It had taken many of the migrants a month or more to complete the dangerous migration from Central America to the United States.
The dangerous journey was worth it, many had argued, as long as they could settle in America. They did not want to leave their homes, but their countries were broken under corrupt governments that neglected them and allowed gangs to rule the streets.
Now they were in Mexico with bad options: give up everything and return home or try to cross illegally again. Both decisions left them at the mercy of the Mexican criminal networks.
Another migrant asked a Times journalist about the situation in Juarez, one of Mexico’s most dangerous border towns.
“How is this town?” he asked. “Is it safe to go out?”
Migrants are loaded into vans to be taken to emergency shelters in Juárez.
Elvin Bautista Pérez, 26, clutched his daughter as he tried to get a reception on his phone to share the disappointing news with family members.
He and Mía, 5, had left their home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, in January for the United States.
Mr Bautista said he never wanted to be an immigrant, never wanted to leave his family to learn a new language and new customs. He had found a way to live with the poverty and corruption that had plagued Honduras since childhood. But then, within a few weeks, two powerful hurricanes hit Honduras, leaving him unemployed and homeless in November.
“They deceived us because they never told us in the US that they would deport us,” said Bautista.
Mrs. Peraza downstairs with her children.
Mexican officials led the migrants from the bridge to their offices, where they were registered and said they would be taken to emergency shelters pending deportation home.
But the shelters were for those whose limits of despair had been reached. Among the crowd of migrants, there were still the hopeful, those who did not run out of money or who were determined to try again to cross. Instead of filling out the government forms, they slipped out of the chaotic offices onto the streets of Juarez.
A yellow sports car and a family appeared out of nowhere was led to the back seat. They had called their coyote or people smuggler to pick them up at government offices. As soon as everyone was packed into the car – as conspicuous as the coyotes are bold – the family sped off to try the dangerous crossing again.
