In 2015, a group of disabled asylum seekers made the trip, calling themselves La caravana de los mutilados, or the Caravan of the Mutilated. It was the third attempt to reach the US for one member, a twenty-nine-year-old named José Luis Hernández. On his second journey, he had fallen from the freight train known as the Beast and lost an arm, half of one leg, and part of his left hand. He was deported to Honduras, where he spent two years recovering in a hospital. “If we don’t risk anything, we don’t live,” he said. “There aren’t any other options.” He added, “No one ever wants to migrate. The
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