JOSÉ Mario and his family spent 18 hours in the frozen box of a trailer bound for the United States.Although it was stormy, he is grateful that he did not suffer the fate of 53 migrants who were found dead in a container asphyxiated by the heat in San Antonio.Until the last moment, this Honduran, who remains in Mexico with his wife and three children, tried to avoid the trailer option because he knew that many migrants have died in these vehicles, which are usually overcrowded and without ventilation.But the "coyotes" (human traffickers), to whom relatives had paid $13,000 to take him and his family to Texas, gave him no alternative."When you make a deal, the first thing you ask them is not to put it in the container, but on the way they do what they want," says José Mario Licona, 48, in a shelter in Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua, north).There he arrived two weeks ago with his wife and children aged eight, six and two, after being expelled by US authorities.They had crossed the border from Reynosa (Tamaulipas, northeast), where they arrived by trailer from Mexico City, a means that terrifies José MarioHe had in his memory the accident of a trailer that left 56 migrants dead on a highway in Chiapas (south) on December 9, 2021;now adds the tragedy of San Antonio (Texas), where another 53 died asphyxiated last Monday."Many times they leave the containers abandoned" with people locked up, he says.José Mario says that a hundred people were traveling in the truck and "it was never checked by any authority" in the more than a thousand kilometers of travel.The one from the San Antonio misfortune, whose starting point is being investigated, went through two immigration checkpoints in Texas, according to the Mexican government.His plates, license and logos were cloned.In a similar event in San Antonio, in 2017, eight migrants died;another 19 perished in a container in 2003.Merchant, José Mario emigrated from his native Colón on May 20 after suffering an assault in which he was shot in the arm, which still causes severe pain.The trailer ride was so "terrible" that today he regrets it."It was very cold, it did bring freezing air. I put two pants, three shirts and a blanket to cover my children. They slept, they didn't feel the way, we brought serum to give them but in the end I didn't want to wake them up. Thank God, here we are," he says.The low temperature also intensified the pain in his arm, but his biggest concern was reaching Texas, where the family eventually turned themselves in to the border patrol in hopes of obtaining shelter.Today they await a "humanitarian exception" to be admitted.Migrants interviewed by AFP in other border shelters say that trailer trips last up to two days and that they are piled up like "animals", since they can fit 400 people in a vehicle.Due to the extreme heat, some faint or take off their clothes, desperately open holes in the cabins, in addition to not receiving food and avoiding drinking water so as not to have to urinate.When the containers are refrigerated it is like being in a "freezer", described a young woman after the tragedy in Chiapas.That is why Jenny, who emigrated from Honduras with her 8 and 14-year-old daughters, refused to board a trailer in Villahermosa (Mexico) and continued her journey without "coyotes."As demeaning as it is, trucking is expensive and often financed by relatives in the United States.Jenny was charged $7,500 per person.They are managed by "increasingly complex networks. They do not travel with a single coyote, we are talking about criminal companies," said Dolores Paris, a migration specialist at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte.The world was surprised again last Monday with the macabre discovery of an abandoned trailer inside which 53 migrants died, of which 27 were from Mexico, 14 were from Honduras, seven from Guatemala, two from El Salvador and the nationality is still unknown. of three others.Specialists estimate that inside that trailer the temperature could reach 65ºC, in this area where the sun beats furiously.The last time Melvin connected with his mother, in Guatemala, was to tell her that he was already "on the other side", in Texas, United States, where hours later he would die inside that trailer.In Houston, his final destination, his father, Casimiro, who has been working there for a year, was waiting for him.The family in his native village of Tzucubal, in the municipality of Nahualá, some 160 km west of the Guatemalan capital, awaited confirmation of the successful arrival of this 13-year-old indigenous teenager.But the call that came in was from the authorities to confirm what they already presumed.That his relative was among the migrants found dead inside the container of an abandoned truck in San Antonio, Texas."In the case of our relative, we found out (that he had arrived in the United States) through a message that he sent with his mother on Monday morning. Then on Tuesday (we learned of the tragedy) through social networks," narrates María Guachiac, Melvin's cousin.The family does not know how it ended up inside the truck.Melvin, who was still in school, was traveling with his 14-year-old cousin Wilmer Tulul, who had dropped out of school to find work in town, growing corn and beans for his own consumption.Among the pine trees, the mud houses and zinc roofs of this Quiche Mayan village stand out other multi-level houses made of cement, built by those who have relatives in the United States and send money.Melvin had "big dreams, of having a good future, getting out of poverty, continuing with his studies and helping his parents to have a good life and his little brother", explains María.Wilmer made the journey to the United States to reunite with an older brother and only intended to live a couple of years to build a house and return.His maternal grandfather, Juan Tepaz, 63, says that his grandson left because of the misery in which they live and without the possibility of improving life in his own land.He doesn't speak much, his words are drowned in tears.Every year, thousands of Central Americans try to reach the United States irregularly in search of a job, fleeing poverty and violence in their countries, and an economic crisis exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic.In Mexico there is also pain.Among the deceased migrants there are 27 Mexicans."Jair, talk to me, 'mijo'. Son, talk to me."The messages written by WhatsApp from Teófilo Valencia to his son remain with a single gray check, without confirmation of delivery or reading, since June 28, one day after the accident in Texas.Jair, 19, his brother Jhovani, 16, and his cousin Misael, also 16, Mexicans, left from San Marcos in Naolinco, Veracruz.They crossed the Rio Grande on Monday and entered Texas at dawn.The family knew that the people transporting them were possibly going to put them on a trailer to take them to San Antonio.Since that day they had no news of them."They were very excited because they were one step away from arriving with the person who was going to receive them to look for work for them (...) From what the news is passing, from the schedules, we are sure that they were going there", in the trailer, says Yolanda Olivares, mother of Jair and Jhovani.