In Trek North, First Lure Is Mexico’s Other Line

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Migrants from Central America stow away on a train in Arriaga, in southern Mexico, in an effort to reach the United States. (Rodrigo Cruz for The New York Times)

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico — With her leg snapped and folded excruciatingly over her shoulder, Elvira López Hernández lay flat on a railroad bed as the freight train hurtled above her, clinging tightly to two things: the railroad ties beneath her and the memory of the 4-year-old daughter she had left behind in Guatemala.

“I said: ‘My God, I don’t want to die! My daughter!’ ”

She slipped off the train in January, one of scores of migrant stowaways heading to the United States. Now she sat at a shelter here, an amputee. But she had no intention of returning to the crime and desperation of Guatemala City; she was still looking north.

“What can I do?” she said.

In Washington, the biggest immigration overhaul in decades would tighten border security between Mexico and the United States to stem the flow of illegal crossings.

But there is another border making the task all the more challenging: Mexico’s porous boundary with Central America, where an increasing number of migrants heading to the United States cross freely into Mexico under the gaze of the Mexican authorities. So many Central Americans are fleeing the violence, crime and economic stagnation of their homes that American officials have encountered a tremendous spike in migrants making their way through Mexico to the United States.

American arrests of illegal crossers from countries other than Mexico — mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador — more than doubled along the southwest border of the United States last year, to 94,532 from 46,997 in 2011.

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, met with Mexican officials in January, partly to discuss improving security on Mexico’s border with its Central American neighbors, something the new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has promised to do. The United States, which has provided equipment and other assistance to help shore up Mexico’s southern border, has long worried about migrants, drugs, guns and possibly even terrorists heading north, concerns shared by Mexico.

But Mexico has been conflicted about its border. Many here see migrants as Latin American brethren who need humanitarian assistance as they pass through on their journey north. Yet there is also growing concern that migrants may stay longer in Mexico as its economy picks up and it becomes harder to cross into the United States.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/world/americas/central-americans-pour-into-mexico-bound-for-us.html?pagewanted=all

This 2006 Newsweek article profiled Guatemalan immigration to Mexico and also pointed out:

As tough as the United States can be for workers who slip in from south of the border, Mexico is in a poor position to criticize. The problem goes far beyond the predatory gantlet of thugs and crooked cops facing defenseless transients like Moisés. There's ample precedent in Mexico for just about everything the United States is--or isn't--doing. Calling out the military? Mexicans may hate the new U.S. plan to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops on the border, but five years ago they cheered President Vicente Fox for sending thousands of Mexican soldiers to crack down on their southern frontier. Tougher laws? Hispanic-rights groups are enraged over U.S. efforts to criminalize undocumented aliens--yet since 1974, sneaking into Mexico has been punishable by up to two years in prison. Foot-dragging on amnesty? Fox has spent the past five years urging the United States to upgrade the status of millions of illegals from Mexico. Meanwhile, his own government has given legal status to only 15,000 foreigners without papers.

Late last year (the Mexican) National Human Rights Commission issued a report criticizing Mexico's widespread mistreatment of aliens; the report described sub- human facilities where captured illegals are kept until they can be deported. Several international news agencies ran stories on the publication. But most of Mexico's leading papers ignored it.