Desperate Migrants on the Border: ‘I Should Just Swim Across’
A growing number of migrants, blocked at the border by new immigration policies, are using riskier tactics to get in.
By Caitlin Dickerson
Sept. 29, 2019
MATAMOROS, Mexico — Peering out over the Rio Grande, separated from Brownsville, Tex., by only about 100 feet of coursing water, Ana Galeano Valdez talked herself down from a perilous decision — something she has done several times in the weeks she has been living in a tent in one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities.
“When I’m this close and I can see it, I’m tempted to think I should just swim across again, but for what?†she said on a recent evening, as the sun set over South Texas.
Last week, a 26-year-old mother and her toddler drowned crossing the river from Matamoros, Mexico — the second parent and child to die there since June. When Ms. Galeano Valdez, who is six months pregnant, crossed for the first time, water rushed into her raft until it reached her chest. She reached the other side but was delivered back to Mexico by American immigration officials.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/29/us/asylum-migrants-mexican-border.html
