SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Both in and out of office, President-elect Donald Trump has spent much of his time deriding migrants. As he returns to the White House, Trump is promising sweeping deportations of undocumented people and evinces little empathy for those who are seeking refuge in the U.S. But many migrants are still making their north - still making their way north to the U.S.-Mexico border. NPR's Eyder Peralta wanted to know why and found the answer on the freight trains that travel through Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: The rocks are sharp. Even with boots, they cut into the bottom of your feet. But in the middle of the night at 2 in the morning, migrants hear that a cargo train has stopped up ahead. Karen Barrento wakes up her 12-year-old daughter, throws her 8-year-old over her shoulder and walks alongside the tracks.
KAREN BARRENTO: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "We walk without even knowing that there's a train," she says.
The migrant walking just behind turns philosophical.
UNIDENTIFIED MIGRANT: (Speaking Spanish).
BARRENTO: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "All of this is a matter of hope and faith," he tells us. Migrants have to push forward even without a destination.
BARRENTO: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "This fight is never in vain," Barrento says. She left Venezuela to reunite with her mom in the U.S. She knows Trump will become president. She knows she may be in for pain and humiliation. But at least in the U.S., her two girls will have a chance at an education.
BARRENTO: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "Even if they say that the American dream doesn't exist," she says, "for us, the U.S. still represents a better life."
(SOUNDBITE OF AIR PUMPING FROM TRAIN)
PERALTA: After almost two hours of walking, we finally find a train.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: But this one isn't headed toward the border.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN HORN)
PERALTA: The next morning, it's the same ritual. Too tired to chase a train, sometimes migrants just yell into the air.
MIGRANT CROWD: (Yelling in Spanish).
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN'S HORN)
PERALTA: Sometimes the young men jump on only to realize the train is going the wrong way.
MIGRANT CROWD: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: They call these trains La Bestia - the beast. They're so heavy when they speed past that the earth heaves.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN ON TRACKS)
PERALTA: For decades, migrants have looked to this hulking piece of iron with both hope and despair. Every time a train passes, young men sprint alongside it, they jump on, turn knobs and pull levers, hoping that one of them triggers an emergency stop.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN BRAKING)
PERALTA: And today, it works. As the train slumps, a mass of humanity runs toward it.
MIGRANT CROWD: (Yelling in Spanish).
PERALTA: They sling their belongings on top of the freight cars. Parents climb with their children on their backs. One old man in a wheelchair is hoisted onto the cars by three other men. When I climb aboard, I realize I'm at least two stories high, and I have to jump from railcar to railcar. Carlos Enriques, a 58-year-old migrant from Honduras, notices my hesitation. "Don't look down," he tells me.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANGING)
CARLOS ENRIQUES: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "You shouldn't be scared of it," he says. "Just count."
ENRIQUES: Uno, dos, tres - jump.
PERALTA: I jump. You're used to this, I tell him.
ENRIQUES: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "No way," he says. "A train already ran over my foot." He takes off his shoe. All that's left is an ankle.
ENRIQUES: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "I don't want to be in Mexico."
ENRIQUES: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "Everyone discriminates against you. This country is a gauntlet."
ENRIQUES: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "But I can't live in Honduras. The gangs take everything."
ENRIQUES: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "The gangs burnt my house."
ENRIQUES: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "They killed my son."
ENRIQUES: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "And they wanted to kill me. No one really wants to do this," he says. He doesn't want to be up here. Once this thing starts moving, he'll spend all night thinking that the train might actually take his life this time.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANGING)
PERALTA: Sometimes the cartels kidnap migrants along the journey. Sometimes they jump on to mug them. So in a final act of preparation in case they need a defense, young men throw rocks onto the train.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROCKS BANGING)
PERALTA: That night, the temperature dips into the 30s. The train moves at some 50 miles an hour so the wind burns through blankets and jackets. In that dark, no one says a word. Everyone just huddles on top of the train on top of the rebars it carries. Everyone prays for some warmth.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN ON TRACKS)
PERALTA: The sun eventually rises, and it colors the whole Chihuahuan Desert gold. Xalitza Campos looks out at the undulating mountains. She's 51, and she's always dreamed of visiting Mexico.
XALITZA CAMPOS: (Speaking Spanish, laughter).
(Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "But not like this," she says. For more than a year, she's been on this journey with her 24-year-old son, Bryan. She was a preschool teacher in Venezuela, making less than $30 a month. After her husband passed away, she told Bryan she would travel with him.
CAMPOS: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "He's my only child," she says. "I wanted him to have a better future." Six months ago, they made it all the way to the U.S. border only to get caught by Mexican immigration, who sent them back to southern Mexico.
CAMPOS: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "God gives you strength for everything," she says. She imagined in the U.S. Bryan can become an entrepreneur. There were hundreds of migrants on this train, and the dreams are big and small, driven both by survival and ambition. Bryan is chasing a simple dream. His son turned 4 back in Venezuela, but he didn't have any money to buy him a present. In the U.S. he'll work, he'll care for his mom, and his son will have a birthday present.
BRYAN CAMPOS: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "I will not rest until I make it through the border," he says.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN CROSSING SIGNAL)
PERALTA: Over the next week, Bryan and his mom do cross the border to El Paso. They turn themselves in to U.S. authorities to seek asylum, but they are returned to Mexico and then flown all the way back to the border with Guatemala. A day later, they start walking north once again.
Eyder Peralta, NPR News on La Bestia in the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
