“It’s in their interest to move people through as quickly as possible,” Venezuelan migrant Jose Javier Fereira said of the gangs running the smuggling. “This is not going to stop until they put a stop to the mafia in Necocli.”
Beyond the jungle, migrants have fewer complaints about Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, saying officials there mostly seemed to want to move the migrants quickly along to get them out of their countries fast. Usually they board when a train stops to switch tracks. They prefer climbing onto freight cars, which have flat tops with ladders and railings that offer handholds. But in their desperation, some migrants also crowd onto the narrow, un-railed tops of tank cars, where falling asleep or being jostled can lead to a fatal fall
The flood of migrants into Eagle Pass, Texas, led U.S. Customs and Border Protection to close one of two bridges leading into the city from the Mexican town of Piedras Negras. The agency said the bridge was temporarily closed “in order to redirect personnel to assist the U.S. Border Patrol with taking migrants into custody.”
Rodríguez refused to take the risk of boarding a train that passed by Huehuetoca on Tuesday night, judging it too risky. That approach carries its own risk. Migrants prefer the train not just because it costs nothing to ride, but because Mexican police and immigration agents frequently pull migrants off buses, saying the humanitarian visa or asylum application papers they carry don’t allow them to travel into Mexico’s north.