PABLO ALLISON

Jeovanni aka Luna from Estado de México, Mexico. (Good luck to Luna with his journey to the USA)

I met Jeovanni two months ago through Ivan, an old friend of mine. I then bumped into him again yesterday to wander around the trains in the Estado de Mexico where a massive freight depot is located and it’s also the meeting point for many train routes that reach the north of Mexico.

Jeovanni, who I shall refer to as Luna met me yesterday at Tultitlan station. As we shook hands I asked him if he was ready for his crossing to the USA, this would be his 6th time. Luna responded that he was ready. He already had his flight ticket sorted and the meeting point with the Coyote, who’s nickname is ‘El Comales’ in Reynosa, Tamaulipas. 
Luna will be crossing the border inside a trailer and not by walking through the desert like he has done before or by using a forged ID, not this time…

As he is a Mexican national the trip to the border is far less complicated than it would be for a Central American or South American migrant. Luna does not need to dodge security guards, State Police, migrant Authorities or criminals to reach the border, instead a plane will take him to the first stop, the Mexico/US border. At that point it is where the challenge begins.

Luna has crossed the border many times from which only once he did not succeed.
He explained to me that he was attempting to cross the border with a forged ID which he had already used in the past successfully. 
As he was stopped by border patrol officers, he was questioned about his status. Luna could not respond to the questions he was being asked so the officers decided to arrest him and send him to New Mexico’s migrant detention centre. He spent 3 months in custody and subsequently was sent to a Federal prison for a month to complete his term.

His stay at the Federal Prison was pretty easy, Luna explains. 
He was immediately embraced by chicano or Mexican prisoners who identified with him due to his origin. They sorted him out with the necessary amenities and he waited until his release.

Once he was freed from prison, put on a truck back for deportation, Luna found himself in Ciudad Juarez with his illusions to live a better life crushed up by the American Dream machinery. He thought of crossing thereafter but something stopped him from it. Had he done it and got arrested again, he would have been looking to spend a longer stint of around 2 years for breaching the law for the second time.

Luna explains that he has sorted it all out for his trip. He has left money for his wife and two sons. He also told his son and daughter that he will miss them but that he won’t be long, only a few years and he will return to start his own business with the dollars he will earn. The Coyote has been paid an amount of $6,000.00 dollars for the crossing, quite a significant amount actually, though Luna says that it is in fact quite cheap as others charge anything from 8 to 12 thousand for Mexican nationals. For Central American migrants it’s even far more expensive due to the distance and all the rest, I cannot imagine the pain and suffering involved through the journey.

As a foot note, in real time, I get informed just now (9:05 am) that Luna is travelling to the airport where he will catch the flight to Reynosa. He sends a text message that reads, - ‘On my way to the airport now. All good and no fear for what’s to come’.

I responded by asking him if his phone will be on as I would like to keep messaging him to see how it goes. He responds that he will use it until he reaches the border, no reply after that so far…

Carrying on with yesterdays encounter, Luna used to be a security officer for the main train depot located in Tlalnepantla in the Estado de Mexico. This yard is where cargo from the USA and Canada arrives and it’s heavily guarded from robbers who have found a market to sell the stolen items to.

Luna mentions to me that it’s extremely frequent to catch people stealing the items from the trains. They can take anything from grains and food products, cars, televisions, toys, computers etc. He once saw with his own eyes how robbers had sacked half a carriage that carried Apple Mac products.

A myth that circulated among train security officers was that at one point in time, a full carriage containing gold, was travelling through Mexico. As a consequence, the train was heavily guarded by private security and State officers. The question remains as to who had hired that train carriage to transport gold, where was it coming from and who was the actual owner.

It seems pretty easy from my point of view to transport drugs on the freight trains, especially since private security officers, State police and other forms of security are easy targets for briberies. 
Another lucrative business is to dismantle cars that are transported on such freight trains. The parts are then sold in the black market. This is done systematically but I don’t hear any reports in the news at all, at least I don’t think it’s wide spread news. I would consider that these types of crimes might damage trade relationships between the USA and Canada, since what’s at stake is huge volumes of cash.

Luna revealed to me that he decided to join the private security force a while back, simply to gain knowledge and experience on how the train system operates, learn the codes and train routes. He is an avid graffiti writer so his infiltration into the corporation was for practical reasons, he says. 
When he was working as a security guard, he would use his spare time to mark the trains with his name which would travel all across Mexico, then into the USA and up to Canada and back.

Before we part ways, he shares a final experience with me. He was once walking on the tracks and bumped into a group of migrants who had made the train tracks their home. Their aspirations for travelling to the USA had been disintegrated for some reason, so Mexico was there home for the time being. 
As he was cruising through their territory once, a migrant approached him and asked him what he was doing. Luna said hello to him and explained that he was just checking the trains. The migrant immediately told him to leave as he was not welcomed and exposed his stomach which was cut in half. His tripes and intestines were fully exposed. Luna could not believe what he had seen, how the man could bear the pain? He asked himself.

Luna drops me off to the station, I shake hands a couple of times and wish him the best of luck on his trip. I subsequently grabbed my train back to comfy home and kept asking myself questions.

The migrant crisis in central America and Mexico specifically is a matter of huge concern, it is a humanitarian crisis that has not been treated officially as such it seems. Thousands of lives are at risk and nothing seems to improve for migrants at all.

I hop off the train and walk another 5 km to relax my mind from the hectic experience…


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