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Stories of migration from some of the best young journalists in Mexico, Central America and the United States


Unhappy homecomings

Marlon Bishop and Iolany Perez reporting from Honduras

Tens of thousands of child migrants await their fate in the US, but already, hundreds a day are being deported from Mexico back to Central America. Governments say they are doing all they can to make the process humane, but the trip home, through deportation centers and across borders at night, is scary and uncomfortable. And when they return home, children face the same poverty and violence they fled in the first place.

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English

For teen migrants being deported home is the scariest journey of all

by Marlon Bishop

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Dec. 19, 2014

Johan and Carlos, two teenage brothers from Honduras, decided to migrate after they were threatened by local gang members. The gang told them they had to join, or they'd kill the brothers and their family. Less than two weeks later, they were deported from Mexico back to Honduras.

Last year year, Mexico deported 36,000 Hondurans, most of whom were trying to make it to the U.S. Those deported migrants are in many cases being sent back right back into the perilous situations that compelled them to leave in the first place. Johan and Carlos are so scared to be back …

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Spanish

Susanita

by Iolany Perez

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El sueño de Susanita

by Iolany Perez

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Feb. 1, 2015

Susanita no conoce a su madre quien migro hacia Estados Unidos cuando ella era una bebe. Su sueno es abrazarla y ver el gran pais que le ha contado su madre; los grandes edificios, la nieve, el futuro que se le niega en su pais.

Susanita es de Honduras, el pais centroamericano catalogado como el mas violento del mundo y que en 2014 expulso mas gente de la region hacia Estados Unidos.

Un informe publicado por Save the Children registro que mas de ocho mil ninos y ninas hondurenos fueron deportados desde Mexico y Estados Unidos unicamente en 2014, siendo …

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From the field


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Iolany Perez is news director at Radio Progreso, the award-winning community radio station in Honduras. She was so determined to get the story of Susana, she travelled several times to the young girls house to conduct a series of interviews. The trips were worth it, she said

"The fieldwork meant we could really get into the reality of migrant famlies, in a way that made them kind of protagonists, owners of their own stories.... We had a great reception from our audience. A well-known lawyer and former domestic violence judge, Luis Chevez de la Rocha, called us to say that the job was a 'complete representation of the reality of migration. Facts and figures alone ignore the humanity, the reality of these kids.'"