Migrants face danger as numbers headed toward US grow

Carlos was working in the field a few weeks ago, planting corn and beans under the scorching Honduran sun, when he suddenly knew what he would do. Amidst poverty and recent natural disasters and with a friendlier face these days in the White House the time had come to emigrate to the US. “I told my brother, if you want to go, let's go,” said the 19-year-old, who asked CNN to withhold his last name.

His brother, Wilfredo, is only 14 but was game. The journey would be at least 1,500 miles on foot from their rural home in western Honduras to the southern-most tip of the US-Mexico border. They filled two backpacks with a set of clothes and a toothbrush, each. Carlos packed a razor. Wilfredo doesn't shave yet. With 2,000 Mexican pesos (about $100) between them, they broke the news to their mom.

“She was crying,” said Carlos. “She asked us not to go because she would miss us. It was really sad to leave the house, not knowing whether you're going to die or where you'll end up.” The trip to the US from Central America is an infamously dangerous one. Less than a week after he left talking to CNN and wincing as he tried to keep blood running down his forehead and dripping into his right eye Carlos' fears would be confirmed.

Migrant numbers on the rise

CNN first met the two brothers in Mexico. Guatemalan immigration authorities had already taken all the money they had on the way, they said. Still, when they joined dozens of other migrants at La 72 migrant shelter, just over the border in the small town of Tenosique, they were in good spirits. Wilfredo watched from the sidelines as Carlos peeled off a sticky shirt to join a shirts vs. skins soccer match, migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua all putting their journeys aside for a moment, a brief respite for the beautiful game.

Carlos' team won, and he was all smiles as he spoke to us. “There are a lot of people besides us who decided to leave and migrate, to look for a better life,” he said. Each night a line forms in front of the shelter's main entrance. On one recent night, dozens patiently waited to have their temperatures taken and wash their hands, mandates for entry during an ongoing pandemic. “This year we've seen a huge surge in the flow during the first two months of the year,” said Father Gabriel Romero, the shelter's director. “The people aren't afraid anymore to leave their countries due to Covid-19 because they'd prefer not to die from hunger, violence, or a lack of work.”

The shelter registered some 5,500 people in January and February, according to Romero. They only registered 3,000 in all of 2020. "I think it's a moment of a humanitarian emergency," said Romero.

Most are heading for the US. And the number of apprehensions at the southern US border has jumped as well -- more people were apprehended in January 2021 than the same month in any of the past three years. Romero says if the pace continues -- and he expects that it will -- he could see more migrants at his shelter this year than ever before.