![]() ![]() “It was just a three-hour walk … They said there wasn’t much danger,” she said of that conversation. The man gave Martinez-Alvarez the contact for a smuggler who said he could take her across the line from Toronto for $6,000 US - $3,000 up front and $3,000 once she was on American soil. through Canada by paying a clandestine network managing a route across the northern border through a cornfield. So she spoke to a man on the phone who said he moved his family into the U.S. “There’s too much femicide, too much danger for women.” Working 12 hours a day, six days a week selling fruits, vegetables and eggs in her home village just wasn’t enough to build a secure life for her one-year-old daughter in a country where a woman’s life is cheap, she said. southern border so far this year, according to data recently reported by CNN.īut finding a way into the States was a necessity, Martinez-Alvarez said. “He didn’t want me to go through that because he suffered so much,” she said in an interview with CBC News outside a motel in Albany, N.Y.Īnd nearly 750 people have died crossing the U.S. Martinez-Alvarez said her daughter’s father walked 10 days through the desert to get to California she hoped to meet him there someday. That southern border saw two million people from her country, Central and South America cross illegally this year - the highest number ever, according to data from Homeland Security. “It wasn’t at all like what they told us,” she said.Īt home, in her village in Mexico, she heard people talk about a path to America through Canada that avoided the treacherous routes of the U.S.-Mexico border. What she didn’t know was the route chosen for her that night would take hours to cross, moving through thick forest and swamp in an area studded with sensors and cameras that would put U.S. Martinez-Alvarez hid a purse under her sweater and believed she was nearing the end of a journey that began in late May. Then, she was ordered into a dark-coloured car and driven 65 kilometres south toward the Quebec-New York state border, the urban sprawl thinning as night fell. Baggage would make too much noise when they moved through the brush and might alert border police, the smuggler told her. She could only carry her passport and cellphone. She remained in the truck until the sky darkened and the smuggler told her to leave her backpack behind. Instead, she handed over the money and watched the smuggler count it. Her final payment was due only when the journey ended. Shortly before sunset, in the parking lot of a Montreal hotel, the smuggler asked Yazuri Martinez-Alvarez to pay the remaining $3,000 in cash while she sat in the back of a four-door pickup truck with three other men. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |