The Way North
The way North is my long-term project, documenting the journey of migrants from Central America on their way through Mexico to the US.
Those who travel anonymously are hidden from view, however, it is estimated by civil rights organizations that the number might be up to half a million undocumented individuals a year.
Most of them are trying to escape violence in their homelands, and hoping to start a new life in the USA.
The 2400 miles journey from south to north may take up to three months and holds risks of various kinds for undocumented migrants. Even though most immigrants are poor they became a business for organized crime groups, controlling the routes.
Before the migrants even reach the border they have to pass the cartels.
Along the way, many of these men, women, and children are facing assaults, robbery, and abduction.
Four out of ten travelers suffer abuse on the way. Tragically, some migrants are even being killed.
There are various ways to reach the border. Once the Mexican government made it almost impossible to board the trains in 2015, by putting more migration check-points on train stations, the journey became even more dangerous. In order to navigate between migration authorities and the gangs, collecting tolls on the road, the migrants have to walk long distances on foot or pay truck drivers for the rides.
The only safe spaces on the way are the numerous refugee shelters, usually run by NGO’s and human rights organizations. Those asylums are providing immigrants with food, shower, and information about their legal rights.
While working on these series, I have been riding the cargo trains, spending nights in the train stations, volunteering in the refugee’s shelters, and finally documenting the wall in Tijuana, which, for me, poses a certain kind of symbolism at the end of the road.
These images are the stills of everyday realities, that these people have to go through on their way. I had been documenting fragments of their journey in three different layers of time; in 2013, 2015, and 2019.
Those who travel anonymously are hidden from view, however, it is estimated by civil rights organizations that the number might be up to half a million undocumented individuals a year.
Most of them are trying to escape violence in their homelands, and hoping to start a new life in the USA.
The 2400 miles journey from south to north may take up to three months and holds risks of various kinds for undocumented migrants. Even though most immigrants are poor they became a business for organized crime groups, controlling the routes.
Before the migrants even reach the border they have to pass the cartels.
Along the way, many of these men, women, and children are facing assaults, robbery, and abduction.
Four out of ten travelers suffer abuse on the way. Tragically, some migrants are even being killed.
There are various ways to reach the border. Once the Mexican government made it almost impossible to board the trains in 2015, by putting more migration check-points on train stations, the journey became even more dangerous. In order to navigate between migration authorities and the gangs, collecting tolls on the road, the migrants have to walk long distances on foot or pay truck drivers for the rides.
The only safe spaces on the way are the numerous refugee shelters, usually run by NGO’s and human rights organizations. Those asylums are providing immigrants with food, shower, and information about their legal rights.
While working on these series, I have been riding the cargo trains, spending nights in the train stations, volunteering in the refugee’s shelters, and finally documenting the wall in Tijuana, which, for me, poses a certain kind of symbolism at the end of the road.
These images are the stills of everyday realities, that these people have to go through on their way. I had been documenting fragments of their journey in three different layers of time; in 2013, 2015, and 2019.