It came as a shock, López Hernández said, to learn Vásquez Guzmán was among 67 people packed into the trailer found abandoned Monday near auto salvage yards. The family believes Flores López was, too.
MEXICO CITY — The two cousins returned to the tiny, hardscrabble hamlet they grew up in in southern Mexico about two weeks ago to say goodbye in what has become a rite of passage for generations of migrants from their remote, impoverished mountainous region in Oaxaca state.
Cerro Verde is a community of about 60 people that has largely been abandoned by the young. Those who remain work earning meager livings weaving sun hats, mats, brooms and other items from palm leaves. Many live on as little as 30 pesos a day . He was back home to see his wife and three small children briefly, said a cousin, Francisco López Hernández. Vásquez Guzmán, 32, decided to go with his cousin for his first trip across the border and hoped to reach his oldest brother who is in Ohio as well.
Identifying them has been challenging because some were found without identification documents and in one case carried a stolen ID. Remote villages, like Cerro Verde, have little to no phone service to reach family members and fingerprint data has to be shared and matched by the governments involved.
“I imagine that he commented to him about how the work situation was and everything and how to make more money,” López Hernández said. “I imagine he called him so that he would come over, too, to have a better life. That’s the draw for why he was going.”
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