La Bestia - Railroad to America - Documentary - (2018)

👉🏻 For more than a decade, desperate migrants crossing Mexico
on their way to the US border have risked their lives to hop
a series of fast-moving freight cars — referred to
collectively as La Bestia or “the Beast” — that are so
dangerous they are known as “death trains.”

Every year up to 500,000 migrants from Central America, but
also lately from Venezuela, ride on top of box cars that
normally transport grain, cement and other industrial
materials to the US border. Many have been killed, or lost
limbs when they have fallen off the roof and under the steel
wheels of the rapidly moving freight cars.

And as Title 42 — a Trump-era policy that allowed US Border
Patrol to immediately send back migrants to Mexico — comes
to an end Thursday, there have been numerous reports of
migrants increasingly taking to the rails to join the
thousands of asylum seekers along the nearly 2,000-mile US
southern border.

“The cargo trains, which run along multiple lines, carry
products north for export,” reads a report from he Migration
Policy Institute, a Washington, DC-based think tank that
studies immigration policy. “As there are no passenger
railcars, migrants must ride atop the moving trains, facing
physical dangers that range from amputation to death if they
fall or are pushed.”

They also face extreme cold on top of the cars at night, and
blistering heat on blazing summer days. Migrants on top of
"La Bestia" train 6 As Title 42 comes to an end, there have
been reports of ever more migrants riding “La Bestia” to get
to the border.

Despite the danger, thousands of the poorest migrants and
those who do not have the temporary visas required by the
Mexican government to travel through the country are hopping
on the moving trains, some with infants and small children
in tow.

Exerpt from a NY Post article:
Thousands of Migrants Risk Death on Mexico’s ‘Beast’ Train to Border
https://nypost.com/2023/05/11/mexicos-dangerous-beast-trains-take-migrants-to-us-border/
Published May 11, 2023

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Train surfing through Mexico, dreaming of a new life in the US
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2023/10/5/photos-train-surfing-through-mexico-dreaming-of-a-new-life-in-the-us
Published Oct 5, 2023

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Arte TV
https://www.arte.tv/en/

Arte
https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/083369-000-A/arte-reportage/