Pedro Ultreras’s Documentary Shows the “Train of Death” Name Fits
On our latest podcast, Honduran Congressman Jorge Calix said the United States could build a Great Wall of China, but it would do little to dissuade Honduran émigrés. Similarly, a visiting Mexican economics professor at Boston University once told me: Americans can build walls, but Mexicans can dig tunnels.
Anyone who doubts these assertions and the difficulty of halting illegal immigration—not that the Joe Biden administration has tried—needs to watch La Bestia (2011) by Pedro Ultreras. This jarring documentary follows Central Americans attempting to get to the United States and reveals the powerful allure of the American dream. The United States appears to be a victim of her own success and the de facto marketing department known as Hollywood. A glint of hope leads many people to accept heart-wrenching brutality and immense risk on their journey north.
Although now more than a decade old, I watched the film as one of the final touches before releasing my latest book: The Latin America Red Pill. La Bestia is somewhat of a real-life companion to 7 Soles, a fictional feature film by Ultreras that came out in 2009. Ultreras, whom I met at a Language of Liberty camp in Poland years ago, has continued his illuminating work and this year won the Emmy award for outstanding journalism in Spanish-language media.
After watching La Bestia, you can see why the train network through Mexico, including some portions on foot, became known as the Beast or the Train of Death. Ultreras took his camera team onto the trains and followed migrants through their stops along the route. He kept his own face and personality out of the picture and let about two dozen migrants share their uncensored stories. (The DVD has a separate interview with Ultreras.) Of those profiled—chiefly from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua—two made it to the United States, and only one remained. The others disappeared, remained in Mexico, or gave up and returned home.
Perhaps the most eye-opening portion of the film is when a lady recounts her experience from the previous night. The group she was traveling with on the train had all been robbed, and the robbers had raped all the women. “But we’re okay,” she said. This glib conclusion makes one better comprehend the unsavory reality to which the illegal migrants are accustomed. Ultreras also interviewed a few people who had been severely injured and were stuck in Mexico as cripples—although they were better off than their peers who had perished.
La Bestia makes clear that your chances of crossing Mexico on this path without robbery or worse are essentially nil. Yet people still line up to take the plunge.
For those seeking to uphold US immigration laws there are, all else being equal, two options: (1) apply drastically more aggressive enforcement at the border (and elsewhere) and/or (2) cut off access to all elements of the nanny state to lessen the appeal.
While one might think that stability and development for Central America are the solution, this is only partially true. Perhaps counterintuitively, more disposable income often hastens departures, since Central Americans can then better afford and plan for the trip. Further, the arbitrage gaps are so high, closing them would require similarly high economic growth over and above US growth. Good luck achieving that.
There have been developments since La Bestia‘s release that are pertinent to the story. Ultreras started filming in 2008 and still covers illegal immigration as his beat for Univision. He recently shared with me that fewer people ride the train, since Mexican security is tighter. Further, “Nowadays, organized crime controls everything. Migrants cannot even enter Mexico from Guatemala without paying organized crime. They move them to the Mexico-US border, charging astronomical amounts. Human trafficking is a mega-profitable business generating millions and millions of dollars.”
Further, Ultreras points out unexpected challenges associated with strict enforcement: “I just interviewed a smuggler in Chiapas last weekend. He talked about how high Donald Trump will bring their rates. Now they will charge double or triple to smuggle people in because it will be more difficult. He says the smuggling business won the lottery with Trump.”
Their business was suffering because most migrants were getting to the United States by applying for asylum through CBP One: “Once Trumps eliminates this, as he has promised, migrants will have to use the smuggling services again, and they will charge whatever they like.”
La Bestia does not advocate for one policy or another—the viewer can draw his own conclusions—but it does convey a sordid side of migration that is worth understanding. Akin to 7 Soles, La Bestia‘s profound importance perhaps gets overshadowed by the pain on display. Both films are raw and tough to digest given the human tragedy and suffering that do not lend themselves to entertainment.
The opinion of this article is foreign to Noticiero El Vigilante
