Drowning of U.S.-bound Honduran mother and son underscores plight of migrants

Record ID: 1433043

  • Title: Drowning of U.S.-bound Honduran mother and son underscores plight of migrants
  • Date: 19th September 2019
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) DELIA HERNANDEZ, MOTHER OF WOMAN WHO DROWNED AT BORDER RIVER, SAYING: "She said, 'Mum, I'm going to travel, I'm going to go'. I told her, 'well, if that's what you decided, you've got your children and your husbands there'. I'm not going to stop them from being together, I said ok but I didn't know what was going to happen." HERNANDEZ WITH PHOTOS OF DROWNED MIGRANTS
  • Embargoed: 4th October 2019 00:31
  • Keywords: Honduras migrants drown Mexico United States Rio Bravo
  • Location: EL LIMON, NACAOME, HONDURAS
  • City: EL LIMON, NACAOME, HONDURAS
  • Country: Honduras
  • Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA003AXBNEIV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Relatives of drowned U.S. bound migrants mourn their loss on Thursday (September 19) in the sleepy Honduran town of El Limon.
    When Delia Hernandez, 44, bade farewell on August 1 to Idalia Herrera, 27, and nearly two-year-old Iker Cordova, she dreamed her daughter and grandson were fleeing the arid fields of southern Honduras for a bright new life in the United States. Instead, Herrera and Cordova drowned last week in the Rio Grande just shy of Brownsville, Texas, weeks into an anguished wait in the Mexican border city of Matamoros for an asylum hearing with U.S. authorities, migrants there and Herrera's grandmother said.
    Herrera and her son had been living in or near a tent encampment on the other end of a bridge from Brownsville, Texas where about 1,000 people await dates to appear in a U.S. court.
    It was not immediately possible for Reuters to confirm if Herrera and her son gave up on waiting and tried swimming to the United States, or if they drowned while bathing or washing.
    The Honduran foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the facts of the deaths.
    Since January, U.S. officials have sent some 42,000 asylum-seekers back to Mexican border cities where they can wait for a U.S. court date for weeks or months.
    Last week the policy was put in turmoil when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to enforce a ban on all applications since July from asylum seekers who have passed through a third country, including Mexico.
    (Production: Marvin Valladares, Carlos Carrillo)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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