Photo / BBC

By Guillermo Alvarado

U.S. immigration authorities detained more than two million people on the border with Mexico in 2021 when they tried to enter the northern country's territory without the required documentation, which represents the highest number since these records have been kept.

During that period, 650 migrants died in that area, most of them forced to attempt the crossing in very dangerous places due to the intensification of the persecution to which they are subjected, a circumstance that has not stopped with the current administration.

Such a high number of deaths has not occurred since 2014, which means that the number of those who seek at all costs, even risking their lives and those of their companions, to reach the country that is shown as a land of opportunities, is increasing.

The numbers do not include those who die during the journey from their place of origin, victims of accidents, assaults, illnesses and other evils, a tragedy whose magnitude will hardly be known with any accuracy someday.

Joe Biden's administration failed on every line during his first year in office to contain this crisis.

But that is not the only place where the dreams of those who aspire to leave behind need, hunger or violence and find a better future come crashing down.

The arid roads leading to North Africa and the waters of the Mediterranean Sea have become a tomb for thousands of human beings, in the face of the indifference of many European governments who are, to a large extent, responsible for the misery prevailing in the so-called Black Continent.

There are three routes through which migrants transit in this area. The first is the so-called Central European route, whose point of departure is Libya and destination is generally Sicily, Italy, or Malta.

It is usually the most deadly and the crossing of Libya, a country that NATO and the United States took practically back to the Middle Ages, is a martyrdom due to the presence of armed gangs and the resurgence of slave markets.

The second route is the Western route that leads to the coasts of Spain and a branch of it leads to the Canary Islands.

The Eastern route departs from Turkey and heads to Greece, in particular to the island of Lesbos, from where terrible images are broadcast about the conditions in which those who manage to get there live.

It will be no different in 2022, with hundreds of thousands looking for a non-existent dream in the powers that, in one way or another, collaborate with their desperation to then close the doors with astonishing and criminal coldness.