‘You could smell the bodies’
J’can mom, 5-y-o daughter survive gruelling smuggling trip to US after fleeing garrison
Published:Tuesday | September 3, 2024 | 12:13 AMAndre Williams/Staff Reporter
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A Jamaican mother and her infant, who had been fleeing violence in a Kingston garrison where their family was marked for death, are breathing a sigh of relief after they were released from US Border Patrol detention and entered the North American...
A Jamaican mother and her infant, who had been fleeing violence in a Kingston garrison where their family was marked for death, are breathing a sigh of relief after they were released from US Border Patrol detention and entered the North American country last Friday.
The mother of five joined seven family members who made the illegal trek via the US-Mexico border a year and a half earlier, leaving everything behind in the gritty war-torn community they once called home.
The Biden administration’s crackdown has reportedly reduced the prevalence of dangerous human-smuggling operations as illegal migrants now face the risk of deportation within days or even hours.
Kerry-Ann Brown and her five-year-old daughter are among the most recent Jamaicans to cross the border after smugglers, known as coyotes, threatened to abandon them in the harsh desert. They will now be monitored by US authorities through tracking bracelets as they pursue a viable asylum claim.
Speaking to The Gleaner on Monday, Brown said it took her four gruelling days from Jamaica to the Dominican Republic, then to Mexico, before she touched on US soil.
She said that she left Jamaica at the end of August and spent close to $800,000 to reach her current location.
“While walking in the Mexican desert in the dead of the night, you could smell the odour from the dead bodies. I tried not to look but just keep walking with the group. We walked far, and at one point, mi drop on my knee ... . The man tell mi say him a go leave mi because they [are] on a mission and working with time ... . It was rough, but when mi see him hold mi daughter, mi just hold on to him and start walk,” Brown said.
She told The Gleaner that she was the only Jamaican in that group, adding that the Mexicans were kind to her and gave her food and water.
“The morning was cold and mi a sweat because the odour never did smell good … . One of the English-speaking Mexicans said people who can’t make it stay out in the desert and die ... .The person who I pay in Mexico did not tell me that we had so much walking to do ... . Dem say we can’t take no break. We had to walk through a little lake that reach my groin area,” Brown said, adding that her daughter looked around dazed the whole time.
They were eventually picked up by the US Border Patrol agents and spent two days in detention.
She told The Gleaner that those two days were the safest she felt in years.
“Is a far cry from gunshot we hear daily and the boogooyaga lewd music and daily arguments. I am in America, where I want to focus on giving my daughter a good life and better myself ... . It never easy because in [the Dominican Republic], they turned back a Jamaican guy I saw on the plane,” she said.
Brown told The Gleaner that she is comfortable with the new security measures of being monitored via the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program.
“When my daughters and mother came here, they didn’t get any security bracelet (BI VeriWatch). I had to sign a document to show that I will comply. Whenever they want to reach me on FaceTime, I have to answer, so I keep it charged and don’t take it off,” she said, referring to a videocalling platform.
“The death threats in Jamaica were intensified, so anything is better than to stay there. Maybe a you same one would report that dem burn down we house and kill we. We inherit the disaster that fall on our family because things happen from mi young and mi a big woman and my kids grow up and have kids and we just couldn’t take it anymore,” Brown added.
She told The Gleaner she was willing to give up some of her privacy to escape dread in Jamaica.
“Mi nuh have no problem. I just have to work with their protocol. I don’t want them have to call the house to find out where I am. From the US message, I just open up FaceTime. I am complying 100 per cent with whatever they tell me,” Brown said.
She told The Gleaner that there is increased police presence at the border from the Mexican end and that made her spend an extra day in the country.
A total of 2,206 Jamaicans sought asylum in the US in 2022, according to data from the United Nations Human Rights Council.
In June, US President Joe Biden unveiled new executive action allowing US authorities to swiftly deport migrants who enter the country illegally without processing their asylum requests.
Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, had made it possible, under Title 42, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, for US authorities to swiftly expel migrants, including asylum seekers, at the border.
The border issue remains a key talking point in the current presidential race between sitting Vice President Kamala Harris, a daughter of immigrants, and Trump.
*Name changed.