President Trump and immigration activists alike have decried how dangerous it is for migrants — and especially women — to trek through Mexico to the United States. Now, The New York Times has put a conservative estimate on that number, writing that it has compiled "more than 100 documented reports of sexual assault of undocumented women along the border in the past two decades."
The reported assaults come via "interviews with law enforcement officials, prosecutors, federal judges, and immigrant advocates around the country, and a review of police reports and court records in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," the Times says. And seeing as undocumented women likely fear that filing reports with police will lead to deportation, officials tell the Times this number "likely only skims the surface" of assaults that actually occurred.
To get a sense of those unreported claims, the Times also interviewed migrant women and girls. One mother described how smugglers helped her cross into McAllen, Texas, then locked her in a room, drugged her, and "raped us so many times they didn't see us as human beings anymore." Other stories — some at the hands of border patrol agents — are similarly disturbing.
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Trump said in January that "one in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico." That number seems to stem from "limited surveys," the Times says, but implies that assaults don't happen "after women reach the supposed safety of the United States." In fact, considering both these reported and unreported stories, sexual assault seems to be "an inescapable part of the collective migrant journey." Read more at The New York Times.
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