Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico
CNN
 — 

A few dozen folks pile right into a van meant for 13. They’ve crossed a river on a makeshift raft and hope to experience 20 or so miles to get to their subsequent cease. However after a short time, the van stops and everybody has to get out.

The passengers – youngsters and their dad and mom, older {couples} and single adults – have paid to get from Ciudad Hidalgo in Mexico, a small city on the border with Guatemala, to Tapachula, the closest metropolis.

However they entered Mexico with out permission or papers so the van driver tells them to duck round a checkpoint and get picked up on the opposite facet by him or one other car.

The households seize their belongings and head alongside a tarmacked path as we be a part of them, lengthy grass largely hiding them from the view of the freeway and Mexican officers.

It’s no secret that that is taking place, simply as everybody is aware of concerning the rafts bringing folks throughout the Suchiate River and the worldwide border.

Sometimes, Mexican officers shout out throughout the grass to the walkers and inform them to return again to the primary street.

Nobody pays the officers any discover. The migrants simply hold marching, at occasions signaling to one another to crouch decrease to maintain out of view.

We noticed no officers bothering to chase them as they walked the unofficial migrant route, simply yards from Nationwide Route 200 that heads from the border northward.

This static recreation of cat and mouse will play out a number of occasions previous a number of checkpoints on the route. Every cease results in a trek of 20 or half-hour and nerves about whether or not the promised transport will likely be there on the opposite facet.

The migrants CNN spoke with mentioned this was simply one other bump of their lengthy street, one other set of obstacles that can seemingly make what is usually a one-hour drive final the entire day.

In Tapachula, they mentioned they deliberate to request asylum or permission to transit Mexico legally in hope of reaching the USA.

Two households from Venezuela mentioned it will be their first contact with officers since fleeing their troubled nation. They are saying they’ve traveled via Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.

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“It’s like coping with the mafia,” mentioned Yeimiler Rodríguez, who advised CNN her household had paid about $1,000 per particular person thus far on their 18-day odyssey.

By sundown, they attain Tapachula, their cease for the evening. They might be within the metropolis a number of days, however none count on to remain perpetually.

Their eyes are set on the US – “el pais de oportunidades,” the land of alternative, they are saying.

Tears properly up in a single lady as she sits again in a van after one checkpoint is skirted efficiently. A fellow traveler tells her to perk up. “Didn’t you need the American Dream?” he calls out. “Maintain onto that.”