Migrants vow Trump wall won’t stop them
SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras: Donald Trump has promised to make America a fortress against immigration by building a wall on the country’s southern border. But as one group of Honduran migrants deported from Mexico vows, no matter what kind of a barrier he builds, “we will still try to get over it”. That was the pledge from 13year-old Lizbeth Paredes, returned to her country with dozens of others after their failed bid to make it across the US border to the Latin version of the American dream.
The 8th-grade student left Honduras in January together with her 38-year-old mother Gloria and two cousins, aged 10 and 12. The family had wanted to make it into the United States before Trump takes power, promising to build his wall along the 3,200-km border with Mexico. But Mexican migration officials caught them riding in a truck in the state of Tabasco and sent them back. They were among the 88 adults and children who arrived in Honduras’s second city of San Pedro Sula by bus on Wednesday. Although they didn’t make this time, Lizbeth insisted - her eyes shining and her hair in a ponytail they would try again and succeed. She hoisted her backpack on her shoulders and joined her family entering a center for migrant children and families.
‘We want a better life’
More than a million Hondurans live in the United States, most of them with no legal residency papers. They are a vital source of revenue for their country, sending home $4 billion in remittances last year - nearly 20 percent of Honduras’s gross domestic product. Trump’s plan for a wall has prompted a flood of Hondurans to leave for America, encouraged by traffickers warning it’s better to try now than face greater obstacles later.
Thousands of Central Americans attempt to trek to the United States every year, fleeing vicious gang violence and poverty in their home countries. Another child, a 15-year-old boy who gave his name as Kevin Flores, also predicted a wall would do little to stem the flow. “We go because we want a better life, to be someone,” the small boy with wavy brown hair said. It was his mother’s idea to try for the United States, he said. After leaving their village of Entrada Copan last Sunday, they, too, were caught by Mexican migration officials.
Aminta Lopez, 41, said she had attempted to make the journey from her home in the capital with her sons, aged five and eight, to flee the ruthless gangs that lord over entire neighborhoods. “The idea was to go now because later there will be the wall that will stop people passing through,” she said. “But I will have to try again in any case.” Her plan is to make it to the US state of New Jersey, where her brother Israel has been living for 18 years. But that will mean having to successfully dodge the Mexican officials who put an end to her first attempt. Estimates put the number of people leaving Honduras for the United States every year at between 80,000 and 100,000. — AFP