Immigrant Struggles At The Border
Illegal immigrants are crossing the border now more than ever. The Mexican government suggests that there are 150,000 immigrants per year right now. This number is an estimation of the ones who manage to cross the border, not including the ones who “die” while trying to cross. There are at least 20,000 immigrants dying each year due to gang/cartel assaults or accidents while trying to cross the border.
Immigrants have many ways of crossing the border illegally but all ways are extremely risky for them. Immigrants have to avoid police while crossing or cross in large amounts of people to prevent immigration from catching most of them. Hostile people take advantage of these desperate immigrants, they are killed, kidnapped, or exploited. According to health professionals 6/10 women are raped while trying to cross the border.
The people responsible for so many immigrants dying and suffering while crossing are criminals. They take advantage of those crossing the border without a care in the world about the human lifes they ruin. The things that immigrants go through are being stopped by criminals who demand money or they hurt the immigrants. Immigrants cross extreme rivers while crossing, these immigrants sometimes carry their kids while crossing those
rivers at night-time. Immigrants are kidnapped then are sexually exploited. The worst of these criminals are the cartels.
A story told by a US soldier working the US border said that there was a time that hundreds of immigrants were crossing the US border through a river when the US border patrol saw them. After the US border patrol saw them, everyone started trying to cross the river. Some of these immigrants had kids. The US soldier said that they did their best to try to save those drowning. Although their job was to try to catch the ones who were escaping.
The worst of this story was that there were criminals within that crowd. Cartel criminals were shoving the people into the strong currents of the river. They were trying to drown the immigrants on purpose so that the US border patrol would be busy trying to save them while the cartel criminals were crossing drugs over that border.
The reason that immigrants try to cross the border even while knowing these risks is because they want to get a better life in the United States. They either want better employment opportunities, to escape violent environments in their nation, better education, or to reunite with family that is already within the US. Most immigrants just want a better life.