Hernando Maquin, a 24 year old father, is the most recent in a pattern of migrant murders plaguing Central America.

• The Mexican government declared war on the country’s powerful drug cartels in 2006, but the war is far from over. Drug gangs have branched out into human trafficking – profitable for traffickers and extremely dangerous for humans.
• People – mostly men – from countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras have long risked their lives to travel to America for work. They typically leave impoverished families at home, who depend on their financial support while they are away. That’s assuming they survive the trip to the U.S. and find work without being deported.
• Illegal migrants are particularly vulnerable, as they must navigate an underworld of traffickers with no police or government protection. Maquin left his pregnant wife in Guatemala to find work in America along with two in-laws. His body was found along with the bodies of 71 other Central and South American migrants in an empty ranch in Tamaulipas, Mexico – about 90 miles from the U.S. border.

Facts & Figures

• Since 2006, 28,000 people have been killed in Mexico’s drug war.
• Migrants can pay “coyotes,” as traffickers are called, up to $10,000 to be smuggled into the U.S.
• There are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in America.

Best Quote

“We were praying for them. We were worried about floods, and by the fact they had no money and no food. But we never thought this would happen.” A relative of Maquin, kept anonymous for protection