Collecting what migrants leave: full-time work at the US border

Marco Antonio González used to fish in the Río Grande, on the border between Mexico and USA, But with the arrival of hundreds of migrants daily, he saw another way to make a living on the shores.

“Once while fishing I found 100 dollars that came in a bag, I started coming. And since now here all over the street there are a lot of clothes (…) here I stay”he related.

The 37-year-old Mexican collects the clothes that migrants leave when crossing the river, which is the last obstacle that hundreds of thousands face each month to reach US territory, and takes them to a shelter on the border Piedras Negras, where in exchange receives food.

“I take her from here to the Migrant House, and the mother (religious), since she already knows me, gives me a good meal, rice, beans, oil, toilet paper.”González told AFP on the riverbank in the Texas city of Eagle Pass.

On the American side, the conservative government of Texas has covered a good part of the shore with a dense tangle of barbed wire to limit access for migrants, who continue to arrive en masse daily.

Many abandon the few belongings they have left on this shore after thousands of kilometers of road from countries like Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

It is the daily bread for González and others who, like him, cross the river daily to collect what they can from the American side.

“It has become a way of life for people who live on the border,” an Operation Lone Star officer stationed in Texas said anonymously.

“In Brownsville and other cities you see them, they come and look for things to sell or trade. “Some make a living from this, although others do it to help other migrants who have nothing.”Cash commented as evening fell in Eagle Pass.

“You need more than one”

““I’ve been doing this for about four years.” González said just after collecting the clothes that a group of about thirty people left when changing on the shore after crossing the river.

A young man, who had gone to the water shortly before to help others cross, accused him of stealing his backpack and started crying because it contained his phone and his identification document.

González denied it and let him look through his bag of clothes.

“They think I am this, that I am that”said. “On the contrary, I am here to help.”

The man, who knows the river and its capricious currents, says that many also accuse him of passing migrants from bank to bank.

“Nothing, sometimes I have to help them because their children are drowning.”

“Several people have drowned here. (…) Also sometimes the police beat them and throw them around,” he said referring to the Mexican side.

Father of three, González sees dozens of migrants on the streets of Piedras Negras every day. There is no shortage of demand, he says. One man’s trash is another’s treasure, is his mantra.

““I don’t like to see things that are going to waste,” He says, pointing around him, where T-shirts and pants still hang from the barbed wire. “Because there are people who are more in need than you.”

Source: AFP