In Search of Freedom
The Southern border crisis
It's dusk in southern Texas and rush hour on the US border with Mexico is just beginning. As the sun starts to sink into the horizon, the Rio Grande, a river that separates Mexico from America, turns into a migrant highway. Thousands make the journey each night, brought to the banks by Mexican cartels and people smugglers who control the border territory.
Senior Deputy Constable Ray Reyna took the ABC out on a patrol to see first-hand what it was like at one of America's busiest immigrant crossings. "We've seen activity rise from February up until right now," Senior Deputy Constable Reyna says. "We have seen a large number of family units come through and you'll see them, coming out of the brush, 30 at one time. As you're talking to them... another 30 will show up, they just keep coming up."
In fewer than 10 minutes we come across our first group of asylum seekers. One by one they emerge from the dense scrubland lining the Rio Grande. Among them is 10-year-old Jessica Lopez. The little girl, red-faced from the hot afternoon sun and exhausted from the trek, collapses onto the sandy dirt track in line with dozens of other children and teenagers. She says she has just made the dangerous 2,000-kilometre journey from Guatemala to America's southern border to try her luck seeking asylum in the promised land. It took her a month to reach Mexico. Her ticket to freedom came in the form of a rickety raft offered up by people smugglers to cross the river. She did the journey alone, without her mother.
