Far From Home: The Tragedies Faced by Child Migrants Crossing Mexico | International

Daphne wants to be a chef, and Roberto wants to be a football player. Emiliano likes cookies and cakes. Desiree misses her rabbit, Kopito. And Marco hopes that his new school will have lots of parks where he can play.

The dreams of migrant children crossing Mexico do not fit in a suitcase, although it is often the only thing they carry on their way to the United States.

Mexico is the last stop on a long obstacle course that starts in Central America, Venezuela or beyond. Crossing the country puts families at risk violence, kidnapping and extortion both from organized crime and from the authorities. It’s a traumatic journey that can last months or even years, impacting survivors with physical and psychological effects that are little talked about but leave deep scars.

Millions of children and adolescents in Latin America are forced to leave their homes every year due to poverty, violence and the effects of climate change, which have caused humanitarian crises of a regional scale. Five years ago, most people migrating north were young men looking for work. But now the movement of people has changed: more and more families are leaving their countries in search of better opportunities. Of the more than 828,000 migrants who crossed illegally into Mexico this year — more than double the number expected in 2023 — about 97,000 are children and teenagers, according to official figures. Many of them migrate alone.

Desiree was very young when she left Venezuela. In her short seven years of life, she crossed seven countries on foot before finally reaching Mexico. She and her mother lived in Peru for a while, but then the family decided to seek asylum in the United States. To get to the north, they had to cross the village the dangerous jungles of Darienbetween Colombia and Panama. Then they passed through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.

After arriving in Mexico, near the city of Tapachula, her mother tells EL PAÍS that they were almost kidnapped by organized crime. With almost no money or contacts, they joined a caravan of people and crossed part of the country on their backs La Bestia, the infamous freight train. Many migrants were injured or killed trying to board it during the drive. “The train is going very fast. It has wheels and it’s very big,’ explains Desiree. “My mother paid the man so we could sit down and when he started (moving) it was night and very cold. I almost fell because you can’t hold back. The bad thing is that it goes very far and then leaves you behind.”

The names of the children in this report have been changed for security reasons. However, their guardians gave the newspaper permission to interview them. Many had to leave their homes because of the violence. EL PAÍS—with the support of Save the Children—invites them to draw pictures of what they hope their lives will be like in the United States. They imagine living in a house, eating delicious food, reuniting with their families and having lots of things to play with.

“I wish life was better there, that things weren’t so expensive and that we had enough money to buy things,” smiles Desiree.

From Chiapas – on the border with Guatemala – to Ciudad Juarez, before border wall with the United Statesfamilies travel over 2,800 miles just to cross into Mexico. Getting there also became a race against time. The threat of Donald Trump, who is seeking to become US president again, has accelerated the flow of thousands of people trying to claim asylum before the November 5 election.

Desiree, 7 years old, Venezuela

The backgrounds and ages of these children are much more diverse than they were a decade ago, reaching all-time highs. “We are seeing an increase in children from Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua and Haiti. They are of different ages, from newborns to teenagers. The number of children coming from Honduras and El Salvador has also increased,” explains Yvonne Piedras, Director of Communications and Campaigns at Save the Children Mexico.

Children increasingly migrate at younger and younger ages. According to UNICEF, almost 90% of children under the age of 11. In 2022, at least 92 of them died or went missing while crossing the region, more than in any other year since 2014, although humanitarian organizations believe the figure could be higher. Added to the dangers of travel there are health risks: gastrointestinal disease, dehydration, malnutrition, leg ulcers, dengue fever, and respiratory disease. Along the route, the situation is complicated by the lack of access to medical care.

Marco is 10 years old and has lived his whole life in a town in Chiapas, which was a relatively peaceful Mexican state until a war broke out between the cartels for control of the territory. As a result, thousands of people—including Marco and his family—had to flee. Between 2008 and 2023, violence in Mexico displaced about 392,000 people, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC). The country has become a source, reception and transit point for migrants. A third of people seeking asylum in the US are of Mexican descent.

“I don’t know why we left. Only mother and grandmother know. One day they told me that we were going to visit the United States to see my father, and I was very happy,” Marco recalls. The family was waiting for an appointment after eight months CBP One App — developed by US Customs and Border Protection — for humanitarian visa applications. “When I see my dad, I’d like to talk to him and play basketball,” Marco says. The number of internally displaced people trying to reach the US, including children and adolescents, has grown exponentially every year since 2020.

Marco, 10 years old, Mexico

Daphne, her sister Andrea and her uncles are also fleeing the violence. They left the Mexican state of Guerrero 10 months ago, after being threatened drug dealers. “I’m afraid we’ll be returned,” sighs the 12-year-old girl. “We had a fruit shop and they demanded we pay or they would kill or rape us. That’s why we came here,” she explains.

Organized gangs and drug cartels also extort and kidnap migrants as they cross the country. Many boys and girls say they were kidnapped and put in “cages” with their parents until they paid money. In addition to extortion and kidnapping, organizations also traffic of children for labor or sexual exploitation and use them as mules for drug smuggling. “What surprised me the most about this trip was the cruelty of the people,” says Daphne emphatically. What she saw and experienced at the age of 12 made her grow up too quickly.

Now her goal is to get to Florida, where her parents live. On the day of her interview with this newspaper, she and her relatives are about to go to a meeting with immigration authorities in El Paso, Texas. After many months, the process of reunification with family on the other side of the border has finally begun. “I think with all the things that have happened to me and everything I’ve been through, now is the time for me to experience the good things. I feel that after suffering there should be a reward,” she smiles.

Daphne, 12 years old, Mexico

“The hardest part for me was leaving my friends and living with so many people.” Roberto is eight years old and arrived in Mexico from El Salvador a few months ago. Now lives in a shelter. Although he has already made new friends, he says he misses friends “for life.”

Not all is bad in his new shelter. He likes to play with other children. And he really likes the potato and cheese balls served with tacos for dinner. “There is more meat here than in El Salvador,” he notes.

Besides tacos and potato cheese balls, Roberto loves soccer and Lionel Messi the most. “When I grow up, I want to go to Miami and play for Messi’s team or for Manchester City,” he claims. No wonder he drew an Argentine player during a workshop he just had.

Sadness is one of the most common emotions among migrant children: sadness that they are far from home, sadness that they have left their family, sadness that they are far away from everything they have known so far. “We see many children with psychological, emotional and cognitive disabilities,” says Piedras of Save the Children Mexico. The spectrum is very wide, and each person tolerates the trip differently. Organizations try to work with children on emotional support, education and understanding of their rights. This is done through the Humanitarian Aid Consortium, which is funded by the European Union (EU). The group of organizations includes the Danish Refugee Council, Plan International, HIAS Mexico, Save the Children and Doctors of the World. Together, they provide assistance to migrant girls, boys, women who have survived gender-based violence, as well as LGBTQ+ people.

On the wall of the shelter you can see hundreds of messages and drawings, on which the children worked for months. “I lost a friend, but I gained great memories and a pair of glasses,” reads a message accompanying one drawing. “I lost (when I left) my country, but I gained by reaching a better country,” read another.

“We see hyperactive, very aggressive and angry boys and girls… or, on the contrary, very shy children who do not want to talk, who have nightmares, who urinate at night or have pain that is not related to a medical condition,” Piedras explains. Domestic violence is another trauma they experience. “We work with the parents to direct the emotional release because we see a lot of aggression and (we see them scolding) their children. We also deal with cases of sexual violence that happened on the road. In other cases, these were children who had witnessed abuse by their mothers or families threatened with rape their children if they do not agree to extortion,” says a Save the Children specialist.

Roberto, 8 years old, Salvador

Another serious problem that children face is the gap in education due to the long journey. Many of them, however, dream about the school they would go to or study to make a career when they grow up.

Emiliano is 13 years old, and he’s made it clear that the first thing he’ll do when he moves to the United States is try the famous Crumbl cookie, which has over six million followers on Instagram. “I want to be a baker who makes cakes with edible pictures,” he enthuses to EL PAÍS. “I’d like to go to school and have a room with LED lights and a big TV.” When asked what the most important item he carries with him, he doesn’t hesitate: his cell phone. On it, he’s doing the same things any boy his age would: playing video games, drawing, and watching videos… even though he can’t have social media “for security reasons.”

Emiliano and his family also flee. “I was told it was safe to play in the United States — you could make a lot of friends and there was no violence,” he says.

Humanitarian organizations are calling for stronger immigration mechanisms and safer routes to protect migrant children and their families. “As long as governments prevent these policies and only try to curb migration, children will be forced to migrate through increasingly dangerous routes. As a result, we will see more children exposed to violence and forced to suffer abuse,” Piedras warns.

Emiliano, 13 years old, Mexico

At the end of the journey, the dreams of migrant children collide with reality. They cross jungles, rivers and deserts, but the horizon is always a little further away. However, the thought of life on the other side pushes them to continue forward, despite everything they carry on their shoulders. “I dream of collecting money with my mother and buying a house. We will live there until we save more money,” says Roberto.

“What I saw in the United States looked really good,” adds Desiree. “The houses and hotels looked very tall. But on this side (of the border) there were red gates with cables and lots of immigration vans to detain people,” she recalls. She also dreams of owning her own house and one day becoming “a painter, a doctor, a basketball player and a pizza maker,” her favorite food.

She does not yet know what her path will be. Maybe when she gets older she can decide.

Translated by Avik Jain Chatlani.