85 Hours: Migration by Bus
DALLAS, Texas — By the time it pulled into Dallas, Texas, the bus from Arizona was two hours and 47 minutes late. It had left Phoenix overbooked, turned away passengers with tickets in Tucson, rolled through El Paso, Texas, at 2 a.m. and finally disgorged its human cargo — a busload of exhausted migrants, mostly from Central America — shortly before dusk the next day.
A sign in the Greyhound bus terminal listed the ongoing routes that were already facing delayed departures. All of them would be late; most of them would be full. Those who had missed their connections would need to wait in line, an agent announced, as the passengers — many of them with no food, no money and no possessions beyond what was in their slim backpacks — listened in stunned silence.
“My God, we are going to have to spend two nights here,” Zuleima Lopez, 37, recently arrived from Guatemala with her husband and three children, murmured as she surveyed the ragged tableau inside the terminal. Garbage overfilled the trash bins, and a rank odor wafted out from the restrooms. Mothers, fathers and children huddled together on scraps of cardboard, atop tattered blankets and splayed jackets.
At one end of the station, several passengers jostled for $7.50 meal vouchers — 19 cents less than the cheapest cheeseburger combo — until, halfway through the line, the agent ran out.
Along the border and deep into the United States’ interior, the Greyhound buses plying the interstate highway system have become an essential element in an extraordinary new migration.
Arriving by the thousands each day, migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are departing border towns by the busload. Every day they depart for cities across the country — to Atlanta, Orlando, Richmond, New York,
Los Angeles and Seattle.
After an initial 72 hours or so at Customs and Border Protection processing centers along the border, the vast majority of those entering the country now are released to nonprofit respite centers, where they are fed and clothed. From there, they are booked on Greyhound buses to destinations where they may have friends, family or the hope of a job. They pay top dollar, often $250 to $300, usually advanced by family members in the United States.
Long lines and bedraggled migrant travelers have become fixtures at bus stations across the Southwest — and a source of substantial new revenue for Greyhound, a company that had been struggling.
The Greyhound station in Dallas, the company’s headquarters, has been transformed by default into a temporary migrant shelter.
In McAllen, Texas, one of the border’s busiest entry ports, hundreds of migrants pack the station daily, lining up to board buses. In El Paso, hundreds at once have shown up at the terminal without warning, trying to find their way.
Zuleima Lopez and her family had ridden a bus much of the way from Guatemala through Mexico, crossing into the United States with the help of a smuggler, but nothing prepared them for this new journey they would take through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee.
At the station in Dallas, migrants were crammed into row after row of bench seats and parked on the filthy floor. Ms. Lopez fretted that the children would get sick, but she was too tired to warn them to stay off the floor, and where would they sit, anyway?
If they could get to Nashville, her brother lived not far, and had promised to help them find work — if the immigration court allowed them work permits. They could live with him until they were settled. The children could go to school and start learning English.
But first, they would have to get out of Dallas. That was going to take 48 hours, the station agent said, because they had missed their connection.
“We don’t have a choice,” said Ms. Lopez, sounding weary and defeated. Her husband, Hector, looked incredulous as he studied their new tickets, but said nothing.
Leaving Tucson
The journey had begun more than 24 hours earlier at a former monastery in Tucson, Arizona, now a respite center for newly arrived migrants. A television screen displayed the name of each adult, the age of their children, the day and time the family was booked to leave and where they were heading.
Mr. Lopez, 40, listened as a volunteer reviewed his family’s itinerary — several pages long — using yellow marker to highlight Dallas, where they would change buses after making eight stops along the way.
The trip ran into trouble almost before it started: The Greyhound bus, already loaded with migrants who had boarded in Phoenix, arrived in Tucson more than an hour late and overbooked. Two families would have to stay behind. The Lopezes and their three children — Kevin, 17, Nataly, 12, and Caleb, 6 — just made the cut.
There was no banter inside the dark bus, just the sound of a squealing infant as it traveled east along Interstate 10. There were mothers with babies and toddlers, and several fathers traveling solo with a young son or daughter. Only the Lopez family was complete. Filling out the seats were a few Americans.
“Sometimes, it’s almost like we’re the foreigners,” said Don Shockley, 77, a retired truck driver, as he scanned the rows from his seat in the back. “I think we got to build a wall. It won’t keep them all out but it’ll keep some out.”
The Lopezes had decided to leave Guatemala earlier this year amid a deepening economic crisis and worsening violence.
The couple collected their savings and borrowed more to afford the $10,000 charged by “guides” to transport them by truck and bus, to cross the United States border in late March.
After being apprehended, the Lopezes were put into deportation proceedings, a process that could take years, and were shuttled through three holding facilities before being delivered by the Border Patrol to the monastery in Tucson on April 3.
Ms. Lopez’s brother had arranged to pay for their $250 bus tickets to Nashville, where a Border Patrol agent had already scheduled them to appear in immigration court. Now, they were on their way.
It was after 2 a.m. when the bus entered El Paso.
“All bodies off the bus,” the driver called, switching on the lights and rousing everyone. The weary passengers had to wait in the station.
Sitting on steel-wedge blue seats with her three sleepy children, Julia Cortez, an asylum seeker from Mexico, asked, “How long to Nashville?”
When she learned the city was at least 24 hours away, she responded softly, “Oh no, we have no food and no money left.” Ms. Cortez’s family had already spent two nights in the Phoenix Greyhound station.
Back on the bus, Mr. Shockley heard about Ms. Cortez’s plight, and a few minutes later produced a $20 bill.
“Hand it to her,” he said, tipping his cowboy hat. “I’ve been on the road all my life. People helped me.”
A new driver got behind the wheel. Most riders fell asleep as the bus hurtled toward Dallas. Shortly after 4:30 a.m., the bus came to a halt at a Border Patrol checkpoint and two agents boarded. “If you are not a U.S. citizen, you must show your documents,” an agent said as she walked toward the back of the bus.
Ten minutes later, the bus was back on the road, making several more stops, though no one got on. “This is like a bus going into the Twilight Zone,” Mr. Shockley muttered.
The drab scenery gave way to greenery as the bus approached Dallas. Caleb, Kevin and Nataly perked up when the city’s skyline came into view. Their eyes widened at the sight of an amusement park. “Dallas is beautiful,” Mr. Lopez said.
Waiting in Dallas
Inside the terminal, a Greyhound manager announced that those who had missed their connections would have to rebook — and they learned how long the wait would be.
Across the terminal there was a deep sense of resignation. Some families shared the little food they had. Parents began putting their children to sleep on the floor.
Ms. Cortez suddenly won a reprieve: One of her relatives sent a driver to fetch her family. She told Ms. Lopez that her family could come along, but the vehicle could not accommodate another five passengers.
Around midnight, the children finally sleeping, the Lopezes settled into seats in the station and tried to nod off.
The next day stretched on against the backdrop of departure announcements over the intercom.
“Adios, Dallas,” Ms. Lopez said, as bus 1506 pulled out at 4:39 p.m., four minutes behind schedule.
Leaving Dallas
Every one of the 54 seats on the bus was occupied, 33 of them by migrants.
Three brothers, Efrain, Jeramaya and Samuel Caal, were headed to Silver Spring, Maryland, to trade places with their father, Avelin, 60, who had been working as an undocumented day laborer for 15 years, sending money back to Guatemala.
“It’s our turn,” said Jeramaya, 30, the middle brother. “Papa is getting old. He wants to go home and be with Mama.”
Each brother had traveled with a child, “our ticket to America,” joked Jeramaya, a reference to the immigration laws that make it easier to avoid detention if migrants arrive with a child.
At 1:08 a.m., the bus pulled into Memphis, Tennessee, for an hourlong stop. Nearly four hours later, as the first rays of sunlight streaked over Nashville, bus 1506 pulled into the station and the Lopez family stepped off.
It was 2,500 kilometers and 85 hours since they had left Tucson — and what seemed like a lifetime since Guatemala. They hugged their relatives and quickly piled into a car, waving as they sped off.