“I told my brother, if you want to go, let’s go,” said the 19-year-old, who asked CNN to withhold his surname.
They filled two backpacks with a set of clothes and a toothbrush. Carlos packed a razor. Wilfredo is not shaving yet.
With 2,000 Mexican pesos (about $ 100) between them, they made the news known to their mother.
“She was crying,” Carlos said. “She asked us not to go because she would miss us. It was really sad to leave the house, not to know if you were going to die or where you would end up. ‘
The journey to the USA from Central America is a notoriously dangerous journey. Less than a week after he left – talking to CNN and toiling as he tried to get blood running down his forehead and dripping into his right eye – Carlos’ fear would be confirmed.
Migration numbers increase
CNN first met the two brothers in Mexico. According to immigrants, Guatemalan immigration authorities took all the money they had along the way. When they joined dozens of other migrants at the La 72 attraction, just across the border in the small town of Tenosique, they were well-meaning.
Wilfredo watched from the sidelines as Carlos pulled off a tough shirt to join a soccer match against shirts and skins, while migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua postponed their trip for a moment, briefly for the beautiful match.
Carlos’ team won, and he smiles at everyone as he talks to us. “There are a lot of people besides us who have decided to leave and migrate in search of a better life,” he said.
Every night a line forms in front of the main entrance of the shelter. On a recent night, dozens waited patiently for their temperature to be taken and their hands washed, mandates for access during an ongoing pandemic.
“This year we have seen a tremendous increase in current 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.”
According to Romero, the shelter registered about 5,500 people in January and February. They registered only 3,000 in 2020.
“I think this is a moment of humanitarian emergency,” Romero said.
Romero says if the pace continues – and he expects it to go – he could see more migrants in his shelter this year than ever before.
Why now?
CNN has reported more than five days on the ground near the border between Mexico and Guatemala with dozens of migrants. They said that the reasons for the increase are many, but that all poverty agreed.
Struggling economies in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala before the pandemic were further shattered by Covid-19. According to them, it has never been easy to get a job, but never more difficult than during a generational crisis.
Tens of thousands of people are displaced. With nowhere else to go, a large majority of migrants told CNN the hurricanes and their aftermath played a major role in their decision to move north.
A third reason has also emerged – there is no longer a Trump White House.
“This is no longer a racist president,” said José Alduvas Moncada Salinas, who spoke to CNN as he rested along the set of railroad tracks he was walking on. “He looked at us like we were animals.”
Trump, who made anti-immigrant rhetoric a central part of his political career back in the early days of his 2015 campaign, has pursued a number of policies to curb immigration.
The Biden government is trying to ease Trump’s more restrictive immigration policy. It also says it will allow more asylum seekers, but it will take time to do so. Referring to a pandemic and the hope of avoiding a boom at the border, US officials have publicly said it is not the time for migrants to arrive.
This did not deter any of the migrants CNN spoke to. Most said they believed a Biden presidency would give them a better chance of getting in and said they would not wait until the pandemic eased.
“It’s the difference that the new president is suddenly noble with a good heart,” Moncada Salinas said.
Mexico has tightened its immigration enforcement over the past few years, initially cited by economic threats from the Trump administration. It continued the presence of its national guard alongside the southern council and denied migrants free access to the United States. But thousands are still finding ways.
‘One of the most dangerous journeys in the world’
Carlos and Wilfredo leave the next day with a group of La 72 shelters, their pace fast and upbeat, trying to pull up as many miles as possible before the midday heat closes.
They did not leave for any specific reason – poverty, hurricanes and Biden were all a part of it, they said. “If you have nothing at home to live with, you get to work this way,” Carlos said matter-of-factly.
They take a route along a set of unused train tracks. Here a train nicknamed ‘The Beast’ rode and migrants got on board and drove north. A construction project has halted the train for the time being, but migrants are still following in its footsteps.
“This is one of the most dangerous journeys in the world,” said Rubén Figueroa, an activist with the Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano group. “The migration route is plagued by cartels and local criminal groups that regard migrants as commodities, so they are the victims of assault, extortion, sexual assault, kidnapping and murder.”
A few hours later, Carlos and Wilfredo came off their route. It was clear that they had been attacked. Several members of the group, including the two brothers, bled.
“We stayed a little behind with the group and when we caught up with them, we saw the robbers holding them with a gun,” Carlos told CNN that four gunmen and a woman had assaulted them.
Carlos and Wilfredo tried to run but did not have time. An armed man first struck Wilfredo.
“One of them was carrying a gun in his hand and I said, ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ and then he struck. [Wilfredo] and so I went after him. “I do not know how he hit me,” Carlos said.
Carlos, Wilfredo and another man were all shot with a pistol. Wilfredo had a serious cheek on his head. A photo of the wound told a former surgeon at CNN he would expect it to require more than half a dozen stitches or staples.
Carlos and the other man were both bleeding from swollen wounds, each on the right side of the head.
Their attackers took and scattered the little money the group had.
Not long after Carlos told this story to CNN, a white van chased down the dusty road. It was from the Mexican National Migration Institute, the agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws.
The group shouted and ran and scattered in the bushes.
Better days ahead … maybe
That evening the brothers and the group walked more than twelve hours, making it about half a mile from the next commonly used shelter on the trail.
Their group took a break in the morning and feasted on instant coffee given to them by a woman who owned a small bodega along the train tracks.
“Migrants pass by day and night,” she told CNN. “This group has just come, this afternoon there will be more. I will give them more, but I did not even cook for myself today.”
The brothers sat exhausted in front of her shop. The trip was still worth it, Carlos insisted. Eventually they would go to the United States and he would get a job – although he has no real plan to do or in what state he is going to work.
Wilfredo, dazed and silent, was not so sure.
“I do not know if it is worth it,” he said. “But wherever my brother goes, I will always be there.”