Crisis on Mexico’s Southern Border

Editor’s Note: These stories were produced in December 2018. These are archived videos and the information included may be outdated.

LOS ANGELES (KTLA/Border Report/AP) — In the first part of 2019, the Border Patrol apprehended more than 688,000 people, over half of them families and unaccompanied children. Although people from all over the world enter the United States via the Mexican border, the vast majority come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, three Central American countries where violence and poverty have gripped many lives.

In Guatemala, almost 60% of people live below the poverty line, and government institutions are weak and wracked by corruption, making many cities essentially lawless. For that reason among other, many people in Guatemala choose to enter Mexico in hopes of reaching the United States.

At the end of 2018, KTLA’s Megan Henderson traveled with UNICEF to highlight the humanitarian crisis in that portion of Central America. Stories range from a Guatemalan father recounting the emotional separation from his young son at the U.S. border in Arizona a to young pregnant mother’s flight from gang violence and death threats.

You can view her series below: