Guatemala City, Guatemala — The United Nations and other aid groups are informing migrants from across the globe how to get to the United States to cross the border illegally, six migrants from Afghanistan told the Daily Caller News Foundation after they were apprehended in Guatemala.
The migrants said that before they arrived in Guatemala that aid workers provided them with maps guiding them to Mexico so that they can reach the U.S. southern border. The men were six of 16 Afghans in the detention facility for foreign migrants in Guatemala City. (RELATED: Massive Migrant Caravan On Its Way To The US Is Forming In Guatemala)
“They give us a map,” one of the Afghan men said. “The map was up to Mexico. There was no United States. But they told how to cross these borders,” one of the Afghan migrants explained.
“But they told us how to go to the U.S. border,” he added.
The aid workers explained which countries have an immigration process for them and which don’t, they said. But not much else was conveyed due to a language barrier.
“Our big problem was Spanish,” another Afghan refugee said. “They didn’t understand English as well. But they try our best and they only tell us that these countries have immigration processes.”
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The group paid in each country along the way to pass through to the next northern destination on their way to the U.S.
“After Nicaragua, they have an immigration process, they will get $150 from you. We went and we gave a 150 U.S. dollars for immigration and we cross another border up to Honduras. We were told that there was also an immigration process in Honduras,” the first Afghan refugee told the DCNF.
“So we went and we gave our biometrics in all process we have done. And we went move up again in another country,” he added.
They hope that they can reach the U.S., where they will be safe like a large portion of the over 2 million migrants that federal border authorities encountered at the U.S. border with Mexico in fiscal year 2022.
A spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said the division doesn’t distribute maps in Panama, where the migrants said they received it, “and is not aware of any other UN agencies that do so.”
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