The renowned French artist JR has erected a giant cut-out of a toddler overlooking a wall on the US-Mexican border. He said the project was meant to get people thinking about immigration.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/G. Bull
Advertisement
A giant mural of a toddler has been erected along a walled section of the US-Mexican border.
The 20-meter-high (65-foot) mural depicts a child with larger-than-life hands, giving the impression that it could bring the wall down with one strong pull.
A French artist who goes by the name JR put the mural on scaffolding in Tecate, just across the border with California, on Wednesday.
He said the project was meant to prompt a discussion on immigration. The mural will stay up for one month.
Central American immigrants turn to Mexico
Most migrants to the United States from the so-called "Northern Triangle" of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are staying in Mexico for now — because of Donald Trump's new immigration policies.
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
No longer first choice
In a migrant shelter in the southern Mexican city of Tenosique, near the Guatemalan border, a refugee from Honduras says he originally planned to move to the United States with his family. Trump's election has changed everything. "I wanted to go to the United States with my family, but we've seen that the new government there has made things harder."
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
Lingering in Mexico
Concepcion Bautista from Guatemala cradles her newborn son in the same migrant shelter. She says she plans to head for the United States, but will linger in Mexico to see how US President Donald Trump's immigration policies play out. Her goal is to reunite with her family up north...
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
A mere transit country?
…but for the time being, she believes applying for asylum in Mexico is a smarter move. Mexican asylum data and testimony from migrants in Tenosique suggest that although fewer Central Americans are trying to enter the US, plenty are still fleeing their poor, violent home countries, with many deciding to stay longer in Mexico, which has traditionally been a transit country.
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
Tough immigration policies
The Trump administration has pointed out a sharp decline in immigrant detentions in the first few months of this year as a vindication for the president's tough immigration policies. The measures are already having another effect. In California, where farmers usually rely on workers from Mexico to bring in the harvest, many Mexicans are staying away, preferring to find work in their own country.
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
Asylum applications on the rise
Migrants from Central America play football in the migrant shelter in Tenosique. The number of people applying for asylum in Mexico has soared by more than 150 percent since Trump was elected president. These days, Mexican immigrants would rather set up in Canada than the United States.
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
Human smugglers up the price
One man from Guatemala says the prices charged by people smugglers have risen sharply since Trump took office, now hovering around $10,000 (9,100 euros), up from about $6,000 a few years ago. Migrants sit below a mural in Mexico with the words: "Our demand is minimal: justice."
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
A new home
With Mexico's immigration authorities controlling migration more assiduously, Central Americans were forced to take more isolated, dangerous routes where the chances of being mugged were higher. "We've gone north several times, but every time it's got harder," says one man, who was deported from the United States in December. "Now, it's better if we travel alone, along new routes."
Image: Reuters/C. Jasso
7 images1 | 7
The mural went up as US President Donald Trump seeks funding and proposals for his much-touted wall to keep immigrants from Central America and Mexico from illegally entering the United States.
Trump has given Congress six months to find a solution for the 800,000 immigrants that fall under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy.
After campaigning against DACA, this week Trump remained vague, saying that the immigrants were illegal but that Congress should make the DACA exemptions permanent.
