Desperate young Guatemalans try to reach the U.S., even after migrant relatives' horrific deaths
Among migrants entering the U.S., the largest group of unaccompanied minors has been from Guatemala, even after relatives endured horrific deaths as they tried to reach the U.S.
COMITANCILLO, Guatemala — Every night for nearly two years, Glendy Aracely Ramírez has prayed by the altar in her parents’ mud-brick bedroom where, under a large crucifix, is a picture of her sister Blanca. The 23-year-old died alongside 50 other migrants in a smuggler’s tractor-trailer in Texas.
“I ask God for my family’s health and that I might get to the United States one day. My mom asks God that she won’t have to see another accident,” said Glendy, 17, who has already packed a small backpack for her own journey from the family’s home 8,900 feet up in Guatemala’s highlands.
Her “coyote” postponed it for a few days because of a flare-up in violence among Mexican drug cartels that control migrants’ routes to the United States, but she is undeterred.
Tens of thousands of youths from this region would rather take deadly risks — even repeatedly — than stay behind where they see no future. Blanca’s fatal journey was her third attempt to reach the U.S.
“I want to go there, because here there are no opportunities, even though Mom says that I’ll suffer what Blanca did,” Glendy said as she sat with her mother, Filomena Crisóstomo, in their tidy dirt-floor courtyard. “I’d like to have a house, help my family and get ahead.”
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