Water and barbed wire: a day with migrants on the Rio Grande

September 26, 2023

The sun is barely rising when the first migrants struggle against the tumultuous waters of the Rio Grande to save a baby, the last step in his family’s odyssey towards the American dream.

With the daily arrival of hundreds, even thousands, of migrants, the border between the United States and Mexico is experiencing moments of tension and emotion for those who trudge thousands of kilometers without a visa in the hope of starting again. their life in the United States.

Sunday, crossing the Rio Grande River, the last ordeal of a long journey, little Olga, one year old, remained in the arms of Yonder Urbina, himself stuck in the middle of the river, while her mother reached the coast American, under the eyes of a Texan patrol.

So, migrants attach their belts to each other to form a rope and try to extricate Olga and Yonder Urbina from the waters.

But the improvised rope gives way under the force of the current. Migrants scream, Olga cries. Of fear.

The group retrieves a rope to throw to Yonder Urbina’s cousin, who walks toward the middle of the Rio Grande to reach the man and baby and help them cut through the deeper waters.

Once near the banks, another man rushes to escort Yonder and Olga the last few meters. Arriving on the other side, the tension suddenly drops and the applause begins to burst forth.

But this lively joy remains short-lived because a final obstacle imposes itself on the group once the river is crossed: a tangle of barbed wire.

The authorities of Texas, an American state on the border with Mexico, placed this metal structure in an attempt to discourage, or even prevent, migrants and asylum seekers from crossing into American soil.

Barbed wire is placed by the authorities where there is no hard wall to demarcate the border.

But at the end of such a difficult journey, more is needed to discourage these dozens of migrants, who manage to make a path through the barbed wire.

While a patrol of border guards helps the rest of the group trapped in the Rio Grande, other migrants on the Mexican side are just beginning to embark on a near-constant cycle of crossings. “We just want to raise our children,” breathes Yusmayra Pirela, a 38-year-old Venezuelan.

Most survivors carry few belongings: clothes, smartphones damaged by the trip, documents and information about their loved ones in the United States.

The rest of their personal items were abandoned on the Mexican side.

Purpose of the exercise: lighten up to facilitate passage across the river.

In the afternoon, when more than 300 people had already crossed, a mother with three children arrived on the American coast. But, in desperation, she injures her children while trying to pass between the razor-sharp barbed wire fences.

In a wheelchair, Maria Argentina, 32, a Honduran mother of a two-year-old child, climbs onto a small island in the middle of the river with the help of her brother and other migrants.

But a challenge still awaits him: crossing the deep part of the river. So some men bring a child’s life jacket and carry Maria under the gaze of patrollers who say they cannot intervene due to the strength of the current.

Despite the men’s efforts to get her across the river, Maria sinks. The men turn back towards the island before trying again… and successfully crossing.

Once on the other shore, Maria, soaked and covered in mud, bursts into tears in front of her daughter Nathalie. “Thank God we made it,” exclaims Venezuelan Lionel Fernández.

At the end of the afternoon, under a mercury which is falling after having flirted with 40 degrees at the zenith, the American patrol boats continue to be active under the incessant flow of crossings.

“It’s a hot spot here,” says one of them who cannot reveal his real identity. “Today was tense. But for us, it was a day like any other at the border,” he said, as the sun set.