Advocates observing Migrants Day today on both sides of the line

Associated Press

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico – The second-floor dorms are sparse but clean, full of bunk beds with sheets but no blankets, and the added amenity of a cracked mirror in the women's room.

From the windows, would-be immigrants can see the green banks of the Rio Grande, the brown ribbon of river, and a line of train cars on the American side of the border in Laredo.

"So close, but yet so far," said Jose Antonio Moran, a volunteer at the Migrants House, one of several way stations along the Mexican border that offer a bed, food, medical care and even clothing to immigrants waiting to cross, usually illegally, into the United States.

To recognize the enormity of the migration and the plight of the immigrants, social service groups throughout Mexico are staging their sixth annual Migrants Day today. Demonstrations are also planned in Laredo and other U.S. cities.

Authorities caught more than 1 million people illegally crossing the border last year, with about 65,000 caught in Nuevo Laredo's sister city of Laredo, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

There are no exact data on the number of people who cross undetected, but Mexican authorities and others say they have seen an increase of people waiting on their side of the border.

"It's not a good economic situation, so they come," Sister Juanita Monticillo said of the migrants, who primarily come from the interior of Mexico and Central and South America.

It's accepted that the migrants are about to risk their lives by swimming across the Rio Grande, entrusting their lives to whatever smuggler their contacts may have arranged.

It's also assumed that a good number are in Mexico illegally.

Marcio Velazquez Garcia, a 23-year-old immigrant from Honduras, was attempting to cross into the United States for the third time.

The first time, he was caught in Mexico City and deported to Honduras.

The second time, he was caught on top of a train headed to San Luis Potosi in central Mexico, put in a detention center and deported back to Honduras.

He caught tuberculosis after being in jail and had to undergo six months of treatment.

This time, Mr. Garcia reached the U.S.-Mexico border, though much of the $90 he had saved was used to bribe Mexican officials as he moved north.

He laughed when asked if he had any fear of the next leg of his journey, which he thought would involve swimming the Rio Grande and getting on a cargo train.

"Scared of the what? The river? It's a puny river. I can swim. I've already gone across today, but we saw the [Border Patrol] and came back," he said. "And the trains have to go to the north."

Many of the Central and South American migrants stay in Mexican border cities such as Nuevo Laredo rather than go home.

Vivo Saul Mendez, 35, of Guatemala, said he had lost all his money because the U.S. Border Patrol caught his guide at a Laredo convenience store. Mr. Mendez walked back to Mexico, where at least he could go to the Mission House and get food, he said.

He said that he would be happy to find work in Nuevo Laredo but that he had no intention of going back to Guatemala.

"There's nothing to do there," he said.

"At least it's something here."