Mexico Already Has a Giant Wall, and a Mining Company Helped to Build It
May 6, 2016
Mexico Already Has a Giant Wall, and a Mining Company Helped to Build It
by Tamara Pearson
Some walls are made of concrete and razor wire. Others are made of soldiers, violence, bureaucracy and misinformation. While Grupo Mexico has built a long wall to stop migrants from getting on or off its long distance train, “The Beast,” the Mexican government’s Southern Border Plan is also making it much harder for Central American migrants desperately fleeing violence and poverty to travel through the country.
It was a bright, sunny day, though nowhere near as hot as Honduras. Migrants knocked on the door of the refuge in Tlaxcala, central Mexico, exhausted. Eyes dark and half closed, and their feet shredded after having walked for 15 days, they handed their one small bag each over to the volunteers, changed into donated clothing, and threw out their old clothes. The two barrels near the entrance were full to the brim with such clothing.
“Traveling through Guatemala is normal, but it gets harder as soon as you cross into Mexico,” Eric told me.
Under the new plan, implemented since July 2014, migrants generally take a month to pass through Mexico, instead of the nine days or so it used to take. The plan has seen increased security presence along Mexico’s southern border and along the train lines, resulting in increased deportations. Crime against migrants has increased, including robbery, sexual assault, murder, and human trafficking. Activists told the Miami Herald that now nearly all migrants passing through shelters have been a victim of, or witnessed a crime: “The violence comes not only from thugs, but also from authorities who shake down the migrants. They use tasers, demand bribes and beat those who refuse.”
As part of the plan, Grupo Mexico, the giant mining company responsible for the worst environmental spillage in the history of the country and which also controls Mexico’s long distance trains that migrants try to use, built a wall to stop access to the train. The wall, begun in 2013 in Veracruz, chopped a town in half. Made of thick concrete, five meters high and with razor wire on top, so far the wall just makes it harder for tired and injured migrants to make their way to the local refuge. Locals who used to walk across the railway line to get to the market now have to catch a bus around the wall. The local migration institute spokesperson however denied the wall was related to the national plan.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/06/mexico-already-has-a-giant-wall-and-a-mining-company-helped-to-build-it/
= new reply since forum marked as read
[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]A few years ago, while I was living in northern Baja California, Mexico, a man came to my gate and asked if I could spare some soap. I was in the yard at the time with a native Spanish speaker (since mine was and is terrible), who got his story.
He had been mostly walking since he left Guatemala weeks before, and was bone thin, exhausted, and filthy. He said he just wanted to wash in the ocean a few blocks away. I offered him food, but he said he'd already been given food and clean clothing at a church, and he only wanted to bathe before changing clothes.
After I ran inside to get him some soap and an old towel that he could keep, you'd think he'd been handed 10 million pesos. I almost invited him to use my shower, but my friend stopped me, saying it wasn't wise.
Things have gotten much worse for Central American refugees since then, especially for women and children, and it's heartbreaking. 
