Death at the End of the Road

It is a short 254 kilometers (approximately 158 miles) from Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican side of the American border to San Antonio, Texas. It is a journey of barely a few hours that should lead to freedom and a better life, but which, for some migrants, dead from suffocation in the back of a tractor trailer without water or air conditioning, turned into a death sentence.

The chance discovery of a mass grave Monday evening in San Antonio once again aroused the conscience of the entire world with respect to the mortal dangers that are concealed by ill-considered immigration policies. Invariably, the story sends a heartrending shock wave. Continents, countries, seas change. But the underlying framework is always the same: in order to get a taste of a better place, adults and children will expose themselves to huge danger. If they are risking their lives together to make the journey, you can easily conclude that they are leaving somewhere that is harmful, dangerous and threatening to their freedom.

The same horror was revealed in the same city in 2017, that time in a Walmart parking lot. A truck transporting some 39 people was parked with 10 citizens of Mexico and Central America on board dead from heatstroke and dehydration.

This time, some 60 people were literally abandoned at the edge of Quintana Road, known as a drop-off point for smugglers. The outside temperature neared 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). Local authorities confirmed that the recovered truck had no rear air-conditioning system.

Three people have been arrested. The survivors of this terrible chapter in human trafficking are still fighting for their lives in a hospital. Presidents on both sides of the border lament and question the responsibility of the other in this major fiasco. Joe Biden promises to confront the human trafficking networks that often set themselves up in parallel with failing immigration policies or overly sealed borders. In Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador points to America’s “lack of control.”

The Mexico-U.S. border is one of the deadliest in the world. Apart from fleeing Mexico, migrants are running from countries in Central America where the level of crime and poverty is intolerable. Unfortunately, the most common casualty is death by drowning, followed by death from lack of water, food and extreme heat when crossing on foot in the desert. The drama occurring this week begs the imagination and is resonating around the world, but every day, citizens everywhere die anonymously while fleeing their country. The migrant crisis kills tens of thousands of people.

Who is to blame? In the United States, it’s a burning question. The San Antonio drama follows barely a few weeks after the Summit of the Americas disaster, one of whose main goals was precisely to produce a collaborative agreement between the various countries of the Americas on the question of immigration. Biden, who hosted the event, hoped “to share responsibility,” but the summit culminated in a lifeless and unengaging declaration.

Biden was subjected to the wrath of the Republican right, which accused him of being the source of all migration evils, as if Donald Trump’s catastrophic pathway to the White House had not sown disarray in matters of migration. In truth, while Biden sought to loosen the tightest bolts that Trump tied on immigration during his term, he failed to achieve his objectives, impeded at first by his failure to respond to the crisis and then by the courts, which threw a wrench in the works. It appears that the judicial roadblock will be a recurrent theme going forward.

Compared to Trump, whose anti-immigrant obsession was tied to the desire to build a wall between the United States and Mexico and to expelling “Dreamers,” Biden is pushing for a more humane immigration policy centered on respect for human rights. But the truth is that he has not succeeded in changing much, unable to counter an ever-growing flood of immigration, mired by the courts that prevent him from challenging outdated rules, and stymied by the power of trafficking networks that take advantage of these twists and turns. It is a huge logistical, financial and security headache.

The numbers are dizzying and confirm an issue that will not go away: In 2021, a record-breaking 2 million immigrants in this country illegally were arrested on the Mexico-U.S. border. It is a utopian hope that the U.S. will be able to stem the tide; it must be better contained. It is a sure bet that we will encounter this challenge as the U.S. approaches the midterm elections next November.

*Editor’s note: “Dreamers” describes immigrants who would benefit from either the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or the never-passed Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors or DREAM Act, congressional legislation that would allow young immigrants in the country illegally who were brought here as children to remain in the country if they meet certain criteria.