Jamaican mom in despair as son, grandson disappear on Mexico-US border crossing trek
Published:Wednesday | January 17, 2024 | 12:12 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
A St Andrew mother is hysterical after almost two weeks of non-communication with her son, who last spoke to her from Mexico as he sought to travel with his child across the border illegally into the United States (US).
Michelle Clarke*, who requested The Gleaner withhold her true identity out of fear of interrogation and embarrassment, said her 27-year-old son and her four-year-old grandchild left Jamaica in December with hopes of starting a new life in the US for 2024.
“He resigned his job as a delivery assistant, working on a goods truck. He was growing frustrated with the pay and struggles as a single parent. They went to Mexico. He was there for about three days awaiting the link to get them to the border. The day before he was to go is the last time I heard from them,” Clarke said.
She showed The Gleaner the call log on WhatsApp where she last communicated via voice call.
The mother of two said she is losing weight rapidly and, as the time goes by, has grown increasingly worried.
She said she has reached out to several missing migrant hotline numbers found online, to no avail.
“His friend went across the border in June (last year) and introduced him to the person to link with in Mexico. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but I saw where he was struggling and hoped that things [would] work in his favour,” she said.
Clarke said she assisted by turning over her partner draw to him, with the intention of getting the money back when he began to earn in the US.
“He is a worker. Him clean and don’t have any criminal record. I know that he would work and give me back more than what I gave him,” she said.
The Gleaner understands that human smuggling across the Mexico-US border a few years ago would run anywhere between J$250,000 and J$300,000 for a single adult.
A child traveller would incur additional costs.
Clarke said that, night and day, she sits by her phone waiting to hear welcoming news of their safety.
She added that, a few days after their last conversation, she saw a report of migrants being kidnapped by Mexican cartels.
“When I saw the news, I got weak. I don’t know what to think. I started to ask his friends if they heard from him and nobody can tell me anything good. The news did not say if any Jamaican was rescued and I don’t hear anything more since then,” Clarke said.
NO RECORD
Clarke said she has made several calls to the US Border Protection outlets who said they have no record of her son and grandson.
International media reports suggest cartels are seizing on kidnap-for-ransom opportunities in Mexico.
In the latest reported incident, 31 migrants were rescued by Mexican authorities near the US border.
The abduction took place on December 30 and the rescue involved Mexican army and National Guard troops, police forces, search and rescue dogs and the tracing of mobile phone signals.
The Gleaner understands that, in May last year, 50 people including 11 children were kidnapped in Tamaulipas.
According to the New York Times, in Tamaulipas, the abduction of migrants is becoming a reliable revenue stream for criminal groups active in the border region, including the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel.
Reports suggest that kidnappings occur whenever migrants pay rival groups for passage.
The New York Times reported that, after a pandemic-era border rule, which led to the expulsion of many migrants from the US to Mexico, advocacy group Human Rights First tracked at least 13,480 reports of kidnapping, murder, torture, rape and other violent attacks on migrants and asylum seekers.
US Homeland Security statistics indicate that border authorities encountered more than 225,000 migrants along the US-Mexico border last December, marking the highest monthly total recorded since 2000.
The data also shows more than 11,700 migrant children are also in federal government custody.
Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, Jamaica’s minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, last year during a post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House implored Jamaicans to not attempt to enter a country illegally.
The minister said Jamaicans engaging in illegal migration are exposing themselves to dangerous situations such as kidnapping, human trafficking and death.
Johnson Smith noted that there is a “relatively small number” of Jamaicans who are pursuing unlawful migration by travelling through Mexico, Panama and Belize.
“Decisions like this, they really do fight against the efforts of the Government, and they do affect the reputation of the passport, and the immigration experience of our lawful travellers,” she said.