Haitian migrants attempt to cross the US from Mexicali

Even in late summer, few Haitian migrants have attempted to cross the US from the Mexican border from Mexicali. The temperatures are brutal enough. It is staying consistent at mid-40C. Beyond the neighboring US town of Calexico lies the miles of desert, which is inhospitable.

Opting for a journey in this earring heat would be madness. Yet the migrants have gathered in the Haitian restaurant, which is a few blocks away from the border wall. They have been through worse, especially the family of Fiterson Janvier.

As they have finished a Creole-style meal of chicken, plantains, rice, and beans, there is both exhaustion and disbelief in their eyes.

Exhaustion of their journey from South America and the disbelief at some of the things they have experienced is accompanying them. Mr. Janvier also said that he left his country on 26 august 2014 with his three-year-old son.

After spending several years in Brazil, he moved to Chile to meet his wife. They had a child then, but as they were unable to move beyond the lowest social rung in South America, they further decided that the time was right to attempt to reach the US.

He and his family have been through eleven different counties to get here. It was a harrowing trip for them. As he took his family across the Darien Gap through a dense jungle, he also said he saw the dead bodies of other Cuban and Haitian migrants.

He further described the bandits who robbed the little belongings they had. Most likely, the bandits are the members of the violent drug and people from the smuggling gangs who operate in that region.

He said that they raped some of the women, although his wife managed to hide with the child when the gang came. Migrant rights groups have the estimation that in Mexico alone, 80% of migrants have been abused, exported, or victimized.

It is not only Mr. Janvier who has referred to his journey as a matter of life and death. It is something that Kelly Overton also echoed. He is also the executive director of Border Kidneys that offers education, health, and legal services to migrants.

“There does seem to be a level of desperation from the families from Haiti right now,” he says. “They say there’s no option to go back, no safe place to go back to, no possibility of a life that’s worth living.”

Amidst the uncertainty, it is also the impotence and lack of agency over the circumstances that he hurt Mr. Janvier.

Credits: BBC