Incredible numbers on the way.
Via NY Post:
SAN CRISTOBAL DE TOTONICAPAN, Guatemala — Dressed in a bright orange shirt, Francisco Gomez yells and uses his arms to vigorously direct the myriad souped-up buses at the crossroads known as Cuatro Caminos, or Four Roads.
This is the busy roadway one local called “the last adios” — where every day hundreds of Guatemalan migrants from the country’s impoverished western highlands begin their 1,000-mile-plus journey to the US border.
Despite recent moves by the US and Guatemalan governments to warn migrants against making the perilous trek, Cuatro Caminos — a muddy sprawl of lean-to barbecue-chicken shacks and wandering, emaciated dogs — has never been busier.“Nobody cares what the government does,” said Gomez, 51, who has been directing bus traffic here for the last 20 years. He begins work every day at 6 a.m.
“The migrants come from everywhere at all hours of the day and night,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the zooming buses and taxis and directing passengers loaded with sacks and backpacks into the right vehicles. “It will never stop.”
In addition to locals who board buses for the three-hour ride to Tapachula and other towns on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, migrants from El Salvador and Honduras also converge here to change buses that will carry them north.
For the last year, the Guatemalan government has created a series of TV, radio and social-media ads to persuade migrants to stay home.
But the flashy ad campaign is no match for the word of mouth spread by smugglers, known as coyotes or “polleros,” Spanish for chicken farmers or herders.
Although the polleros charge $3,500 to $13,000 per person to take migrants on what is often a harrowing journey on bus and foot through jungle and desert routes often used by drug gangs, the demand for their services has never been more intense, said Gabriel Escobar, a local reporter who has covered migrants.