Mexican women who help migrants on their perilous journey to the US

Few people know how dangerous the migrant journey across Mexico has become in recent months than a group of women in the eastern state of Veracruz, known as Las Patronas.

In the last 30 years, as the policies towards Central American migrants have become more difficult on both sides of the Rio Grande, they have maintained the same humanitarian action for migrants passing through their village.

Every day, Las Patronas wraps rice, beans, tortillas, bread, cans of tuna and bottles of water.

As the freight train known as The Beastthat is, the Beast, approaches, paddles along the side of the rail and grabs the food so that the migrants walking on its roof can grab it as they thunder past.

“Thank you! God bless you!” migrants shouted over the deafening sound of the train as it hurtled north, a fleeting moment of grace on what is one of the world’s most dangerous migrant journeys.

Many will struggle to get too far north.

This year, Mexico has stopped nearly three times as many migrants crossing its territory from Central America as it did last year. While the 280,000-month ban imposed by Mexican authorities has won approval in Washington, it has made life difficult for those on the road.

“The dream that many call the American Dream has turned into a nightmare”, says Norma Romero, founder of Las Patronas.

Mexico and the United States are at a critical point in their relationship.

Mexico recently elected its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who will take office in October. The United States, meanwhile, is entering full swing in its election campaign as it may have its first female president in Kamala Harris, or Trump’s second president.

Neither situation gives Norma much reason for hope.

“I have never put my faith in politics. Instead, I believe in ordinary people who bring change and have different ways of thinking,” he said, as his fellow volunteers chopped vegetables to taste the rice.

And she doesn’t think having a woman in charge will make any difference in terms of addressing the widespread abuse of migrants in Mexico.

“The sad thing is that politics has never improved since then, as far as I can remember. Indeed, no change has helped the migrants.”

I first met Norma ten years ago when, as she showed the BBC, freight trains were moving with migrants fleeing violence and hardship in their countries to find a better life in the United States.

Successive Mexican governments tended not to stop northbound people from passing through. In the United States, illegal immigration was not the divisive election issue it is now.

Today, that attitude has changed dramatically. Especially in US border states, it’s a top issue heading into the November ballot.

In June, President Joe Biden issued an executive order giving the US Border Patrol the right to deport people who have entered the US illegally without processing their asylum claims. In the first four weeks of the new policy, there was a 40% reduction in arrests at the US southern border.

Norma says Las Patronas has seen empty trains in recent weeks – sometimes with no migrants on them at all. He thinks that migrants use other means, by bus or on foot.

But, he says, they remain woefully uninformed about the progress of American policy or the extent of the obstacles they face on the road:

“Migrants don’t have the basic knowledge they need about what’s involved in traveling to Mexico,” he laments. “We see what happens to them and try to think about their well-being as people.”

Las Patronas also has a shelter where weary migrants can get a hot meal, a bed, a bath, wash their clothes and get medical treatment.

Among those staying for a few days to rest and gather their strength is Guadalupe, a Salvadoran immigrant with her 17-year-old daughter Nicole. He says they will not continue the journey The Beast and, after being taken off the freight train twice by immigration officers.

You remember, the experience was brutal.

“They beat a lot of people we were with and gave some people electric shocks with tasers. They almost scolded me too. This was the worst event we have ever experienced here in Mexico.”

Given the threat of kidnapping, sexual harassment and extortion by the country’s drug cartels, crossing Mexico is one of the most fraught parts of a journey that, for some, began in the Andes or the Caribbean.

Guadalupe says that often, they are defrauded by transportation and security officials, the men and women charged with maintaining the law in Mexico.

“When they take us off the train, many immigration officers demand a bribe from us. If we have enough money, we can pass. This time, we didn’t, and they sent us back to the Guatemalan border. That was a very difficult thing.”

Mexican law enforcement has undoubtedly reduced the number of immigrants arriving at the door of the US.

“There is no migration problem right now,” Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said recently as he urged the US to step up development aid in Central America to prevent people from leaving their homes in the first place.

Instead of outright deportations — Mexico returned only about 8,500 people in the first three months of this year — Mexican authorities have been using an ‘internal displacement’ method instead. Thousands of detained migrants have been dropped off in Guatemalan border towns, some 2,000 kilometers from the US border.

This strategy robs migrants of the money and energy they need to continue. A Salvadoran immigrant, Guadalupe, likens the strategy to a great game of snakes and ladders:

“It’s very similar. Like a board game, you have to avoid stepping on snakes or you’re back to square one. It’s the same here. If we don’t hide or run faster than the migrant workers, our journey ends and we are sent back to the beginning.”

The BBC has made repeated requests to discuss illegal immigration with the Mexican government, but no one has been forthcoming.

As another train approaches, Guadalupe helps Norma Romero and the other women unload food onto the tracks.

Regardless of who wins in the US, or their relationship with President-elect Sheinbaum, Norma says Las Patronas will not turn off their stoves as long as immigrants keep coming through.

Listen to ‘Las Patronas’ in Documentary on BBC World Service.