Picture this: a migrant caravan hundreds of people strong is gaining

steam in southern Mexico. They have been travelling for weeks, marching up to 16 hours a day in the sweltering heat and charging through Mexican immigration checkpoints despite orders to stop. The marchers claim to be fleeing gang violence and collapsing governments in Central America, and they hope to find refuge in Mexico and the US.

If you’re Donald Trump, you might think I’m describing the migrant

caravan that has dominated conservative news coverage in recent days.

But actually I could be describing any of the 20-odd caravans that

have passed through Mexico in the last decade. That Trump is just

discovering these Central American caravans now demonstrates just how

little he understands a refugee crisis that has been years in the

making.



In 2015, I marched with a migrant caravan myself. I was in Mexico on a

Fulbright fellowship, and I joined a caravan of over 400 people to

document the human rights abuses that Central Americans face while

travelling through the country. I know from personal experience that

Trump’s characterizations of the current migrant caravan are flat-out

wrong.



To start, migrant caravans often go by another name in Spanish: the

“Viacrucis Migrante”, or the Migrant Stations of the Cross. In Latin

America, the Stations of the Cross, which reenact Christ’s last steps

and crucifixion during the Easter holidays, are an important part of

religious ceremonies. Migrants, by organizing their own Viacrucis, are

explicitly comparing their own persecution to the suffering Christ

endured during his last moments on earth. Their march is as much

peaceful pilgrimage as it is civil disobedience.



Their march is as much peaceful pilgrimage as it is civil disobedience

Migrant Viacrucis marches started over ten years ago specifically to

protest the increasing militarization of US and Mexican borders. In

2014, the US began quietly paying Mexico over $100m a year to

catch and deport Central Americans along its border with Guatemala.Suddenly Mexican border enforcement was big business, and Mexico’s new anti-immigration program, dubbed the Southern Border Plan, was born.

Within a year, detentions of Central Americans rose 79% under the

plan, and detentions of child migrants ages 10 and under skyrocketed

an astounding 541%. Mexico deported many migrants without due

process, which is against international human rights mandate and,

technically, Mexican law. Assaults, kidnappings, and murders of

migrants have also increased largely because, under the plan, border

enforcement has forced Central Americans to cross in increasingly

dangerous and isolated areas run by gangs and cartels.

Conditions on any migrant Viacrucis are rough, but after the plan,

they became miserable. Not only did we have to walk hundreds of miles,

but we slept exposed in town courtyards and had little access to

toilets or showers. Sanitary items like toilet paper, diapers, and

tampons were scarce. We scavenged in the jungle for mangoes and

avocados and relied on the generosity of small pueblos for anything

more. I lost fifteen pounds in two weeks, which I could afford, but

there were worries about malnutrition and dehydration with our

toddlers and elderly. I was also bitten by a brown recluse spider

while sleeping in the open and required emergency surgery after I had

an allergic reaction to the venom.



Still, travelling with a Viacrucis is often the safest way to cross

Mexico as a migrant. Many in our group were single mothers, toddlers,

and even pregnant women. The Viacrucis had a disproportionately high

number of LGBTQ migrants, who are assaulted and murdered at extremely

high rates in Mexico and Central America. I was also surprised by how

many people had already lived in the US. Ruben, a pastor in Los

Angeles, moved to California over twenty years ago when he was just a

teenager. Milton was working in Manhattan during 9/11 and sheltered

ash-covered pedestrians in his apartment. Axel had lived on Long

Island since he was a baby but was deported for the first time after a

woman rear-ended him while he was driving his son to school.



Because of these human stories, migrant Viacrucis marches routinely

make Mexico’s national news each Easter. For years they were part of

the novelty news cycle, curious human-interest pieces that only mildly

annoyed Mexican officials, if they even registered on their radar in

the first place. After all, a handful of nonviolent Central American

immigrants on pilgrimage was but a blip in a country dealing with much

more pressing issues like state-wide corruption and warring drug

cartels.



But after the plan, everything changed. When news coverage of the 2015

Viacrucis made headlines in Mexico City, approximately 100 Mexican

federal police were sent to detain us. When the Viacrucis did not

comply, the police beat everyone. Three vertebrae in one man’s neck

were fractured after a policeman struck him with a baton, and another

woman’s foot was shattered.



The assault – which was later deemed illegal by the Mexico’s National

Human Rights Commission, though no officer was ever held

accountable – was ostensibly funded by the US government through the

Southern Border Plan. Eventually, some migrants were granted temporary

visas as a kind of official apology for the attack, but they expired

after 20 days, leaving most people stranded once again in Mexico.

These are the same visas Mexico is reportedly distributing to members

of the new Viacrucis today.

Regardless of migrant caravans’ effectiveness, it is important to keep

in mind that the Viacrucis is a product of militarized borders and

increased deportations, not the cause of them. Marching migrants are

not part of a hostile take over, but rather the effect of one. They

are the ones who have seen their countries and lives crumble under US

intervention.



During a traditional Viacrucis reenactment in Latin America, Christ

cries out as he is crucified: “My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Trump, and his evangelical base, must now decide if they will

forsake the migrant Viacrucis as well.