Society - Crossing Mexico's Other Border

When traveling from Central America to the United States through Mexico, immigrants are forced to battle drug cartels, corrupt police officers, and human traffickers, all before they even come close to the US border. People tend to assume that the immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border are all Mexican. The reality is that a large percentage of them come from Central America, and their journey north is grueling. To get to the US, they first have to pass through Mexico, an ordeal that often ends up being even more difficult than getting into the United States. Most migrants cross into Mexico on rafts, via the Suchiate River. After that, they need to protect themselves from corrupt Mexican police, drug cartels like the infamous Zetas, and even fellow migrants. They often travel by foot and by pubic transit, but many of them ride on top of the Beast, the freight trains that travel from the south to the north of Mexico.