Reynosa.— At the age of eight, Andrea Carolina traveled more than 1,800 miles from her native Honduras to San Antonio, Texas, where she was arrested Tuesday along with her father and a group of migrants; later she was returned to Mexico.
The little girl has not stopped crying. He says his feet hurt the most because he hasn’t stopped walking in the past three days.
His wish, like that of his father and dozens of migrants, was to go to the United States to start a new life, but when they were already in the United States, they were detained by immigration and sent back by Reynosa to Mexico.
Andrea arrived at the Tamaulipeco Institute for Migrants, nearly passed out and lay in her father’s arms. The man, who looks emaciated, asks if a doctor is treating the minor. When lowering, the little girl cannot help but cry. Her legs buckle as soon as she hits the ground and she can’t get up.
A high school doctor carries her to a stretcher in an adjoining office. When asked what hurts, Andrea points from her feet to her shoulders.
When I take off her tennis shoes, which are not her size and are too big, Andrea moans in pain. His feet are bruised, cracked and swollen.
The girl tells how she experienced the odyssey of thousands of migrants who were looking for the American dream: “Yes, I wanted to get there [a EU] in front of [tener] a new life, but I couldn’t, ”she says through tears, counting all the parts of her body that hurt: her feet, legs, back, and her right arm.
Her message to the US authorities is to take her to her mother, who is pregnant in Honduras.
To migrants trying to enter the United States, he says, “Don’t leave because they won’t let you pass.”
After she is checked, Andrea asks for food and water, so – immediately – employees of the Tamaulipeco Institute go out to buy food and an ointment for the minor’s feet while looking for suitable footwear for her measure.
His father, Denis, says they were in a group that entered the United States on Tuesday, but was detained as they arrived in San Antonio. He says about his trip from Honduras that he spent between $ 14,000 and $ 15,000, but he won’t try to cross again: “He can’t do for my daughter anymore. I want to go back to my country ”.
He says he wanted to start over in the United States because his family lost everything in the hurricane, including his home.
He admits that he took the girl because “the step was easier with her, but everything went wrong with me.
“I wanted a better future, but it wasn’t possible,” he says; These are the same words that his daughter Andrea Carolina repeats.
They are working for a safe return
Given the difficult situation facing more than 200 Central American migrants who settle in a public square in Reynosa, where they set up camp, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Tamaulipas government are working to bring resources ashore and pay the costs. so that these people can return to their country of origin.
Ricardo Calderón, head of the Tamaulipeco Institute for Migrants, assures that many of these foreigners no longer want to enter the American Union, from where they are being deported, despite having been in legal proceedings for years.
It indicates that there are many children who, according to the new legislative reforms, must be cared for by the DIF in order to preserve their integrity.
In these cases, he explains, the minor’s benefit is sought, either with a humanitarian visa in Mexico or by facilitating their return to their country.