feet high and deep. Especially the jugs; there were
thousands of them. You had to wonder: If the
migrants shed their water here, what did they
do once on the other side?
‘‘It’s like this at the end of every migration
season,’’ Vasa vilbaso said.
On the fence posts, the mist had brought
out handprints and shoe scuff s. Some people
are strong enough to climb up the fence and
leap over the wire. For those who aren’t, like
small children, the guide will bring a ladder.
We passed a ghostly sight: a child’s sweatshirt
suspended in the coil of wire, hanging there as
though on a mannequin in a shop window: the
sleeves outstretched symmetrically, the hood
upright. It appeared as though a child had
dropped out of it and the sweatshirt had stayed.
‘‘It’s kind of eerie, isn’t it?’’ Hernandez said.The coyote from Cubulco took Roberto to anoth-
er town in central Guatemala, where he handed
him off to another coyote, who drove him over
the border into Chiapas, Mexico. There Roberto
boarded a bus. Coyotes buy up blocks of seats or
charter whole buses and pay off drivers, depot
guards, the police. He slowly made his way
north with an expanding group of migrants,
switching buses every few days. From the bus,
Roberto video- called Caty on his smartphone
several times a day, pointing the camera out the
window onto the passing landscape so she could
see what he saw. She noticed that the buses werebecoming more crowded. Eventually Roberto
was standing in the aisle. There were no rest
stops. The passengers were given only scrambled
eggs and some water for sustenance.
For solace, Roberto read the little blue Gide-
on Bible, one of a shipment of Bibles his aunt’s
church in Nashville had sent to his church in
Cubulco. In Chihuahua, the bus had to turn
around and backtrack, adding another three
days to the journey. When he called Caty now,
Roberto sounded depleted. He asked her to
pray for him.
After two weeks of this, Roberto fi nally arrived
in Altar, a town 60 miles south of the border in
Sonora, Mexico. He was exhausted but excited,
he told Caty. He was put in a group with nine
other migrants, and they were installed in a safe
house, one of many around Altar. The coyote
gave Roberto’s group over to the foot guide who
would lead them through the desert. The man
never said his name. He handed Roberto a black
plastic gallon water jug, a camoufl age jacket, pant
covers and carpet shoes.
When Tomás crossed, the Border Patrol had
about 8,600 agents on the border; now there were
17,000. Eight of every 10 miles of Arizona border
was now blocked with some form of pedestrian
or vehicle barrier. Tomás and Magdalena had got-
ten through on their fi rst tries, but now it was
common for migrants to make several attempts
before getting across, if they got across at all. The
day after Roberto arrived in Altar, two groups
of migrants returned from the desert. On the
American side, they reported, the Border Patrol
was everywhere. There had been no way through,
and they turned back.
The guide told Roberto’s group they could
still go, but they would have to hike a longer
route. It would take seven days rather than the
planned- on three. Roberto agreed. He had heard
about migrants dying in the desert; everyone in
Guatemala had. Even his mother- in- law, who
spent three days trekking in the desert, told him
it took all her strength. But it was all worth it,
she had said.
Late on the morning of Sunday, June 9, Rober-
to called Caty.
‘‘Please be careful,’’ she said. ‘‘I love you, and
our child does, too.’’
She was now fi ve months pregnant.
‘‘I’ll be on the other side by Saturday,’’ he told
her. ‘‘Get ready. You’re next.’’
When Caty didn’t hear from Roberto on
Saturday, June 15, the day he was supposed to
have arrived in Arizona, she got anxious. Her
father told her not to worry. ‘‘They’re probably
somewhere hiding from Border Patrol,’’ he said.
She called Roberto’s family and learned that he
tried to call her from the desert but couldn’t get
through. He had talked to his aunt in Nashville,
however, and sounded good.
But by Monday, Caty still hadn’t heard any-
thing. Tomás called theThe New York Times Magazine 35Empty water jugs left behind by migrants in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona.(Continued on Page 45)