They Crossed Illegally: A Conversation with Three Who Just Arrived in the U.S.

What would you ask three Hondurans who, just the night before, slipped across the border between Mexico and the US? What would you want to know?

How did they do it? They ran into the darkness down a mountain to wade across the cold Rio Grande River. Then they huddled through the night in a stable, shivering and wet, their hearts still pounding from slipping past the Border Patrol during the interval in coverage they judged to be three minutes.

Why did they do it? They came because the economy in their country is "screwed." Even if you could land a "really good job" you'd earn $100/week max. Expenses there are the same as here, they said. Pepsi is $2. A hamburger is $5. Even one hundred a week wouldn't be enough. And the truth is: you are crazy to think you'll ever make more than $60/week.

What work will they do here, we wondered? "Anything!" was their emphatic, unequivocal reply in unison.

The three cousins--two men and a woman--left behind beloved family who are worried about them. For those loved ones they came to eke out enough money to build "a humble home" back in Honduras: perhaps a two room house. Oh yes, they want to go back to them. "It is good to be with your family," the young woman stated simply.

Young--all in their twenties--they were relentlessly robbed and extorted throughout the almost two week journey by train through Central American and, perhaps worse, through Mexico where they are also considered "illegal aliens." They were robbed by police, by train security, by gangs and by common thieves. When they finally made it to the U.S. border they had 200 pesos between them (less than $20) until a knife-wielding bandit took even that.

They hopped trains to make the journey. They saw a woman who fell as she was severed at the waist when the train bisected her. They saw a man lose his foot to the train. One of them fell from the train himself and injured his leg, but he can still walk with pain. They want to continue north on trains to find relatives who will shelter them in the U.S. They'll need warmer clothing so as not to freeze, we cautioned.

They arrived with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. No bag. No nothing.

I hugged the woman when I excused myself. "It is much harder on women," her cousin choked with clouded eyes. I fear now that she was raped. I could not ask. Were her cousins forced to watch the violation? It wouldn't be right to ask.

They are not angry.

I am angry. Why are they not angry?

With all that is in me, I hope and pray that stories like theirs never lose their power to move me.