Migrants

Here is what is called a typical story about refugees crossing Mexico. Chris Cruz age 22 left El Salvador and paid a smuggler $6,000 to guide him to the US. This brought him near Brownsville but it would cost another $6,500 to get him the next 500 miles to Houston. That is because this area is heavily guarded by the border patrol. The smugglers have set up an underground railroad similar to the way southern slaves made their way north. He watched other migrants who could not keep up be abandoned along the way. Cruz said they can build walls and send soldiers to the border but they won't keep us from the freedom we seek. Smuggling is a big business around the world. The money is the incentive but danger lurks. Each year refugees are injured and die along the way. The DHS gives a pregnancy test to every girl over ten. Along the way, many of these men, women and children suffer assaults, robbery and abduction by criminal gangs. There are also reports of extortion and ill-treatment by police and immigration officials. Tragically, some migrants are killed before they even get this far.