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UNCERTAIN FUTURES

The Beast rolls forward and silence falls. Among the families are Eduardo and Alejandra, who have travelled from Venezuela with their two young daughters.

Nobody knows what the future holds but at this moment they're heading north and that's enough.

Two hours later, the train jerks to a halt at a temporary checkpoint. Mexican immigration officers, some wearing body armour with their faces covered, board the train alongside armed soldiers and national guard, and work their way through the railway cars trying to persuade people to get off.

A group of women have been forced off the train. They're crouched down on the track holding each other, some of them are crying softly. Officers shout at them but as we approach, they temper their tone.

Near the front of a car is Alejandra, holding her two-year-old, Emely, who is fast asleep. She's begging officials not to make them get off.

Eventually, she has no choice. Emely is taken from her mother and passed down the train to a female officer, who holds her awkwardly. Separated from her family in the middle of the night, the little girl's face is filled with fear.

Alejandra climbs down from the train and joins her daughter on the track. Then they are led away. As Alejandra walks, still holding Emely, she becomes increasingly distressed - her husband and older daughter are nowhere to be seen.

"Where are the other people who got off with me?" she asks the officers. Her husband is waiting for her near the migration vans, they say.

"You don't even know who he is. How can you tell me my husband is there?" she asks, tearfully.

Eventually, her husband and their four-year-old, Mariangel, catch up. The family disappear into the night on foot.

Some of the migrants refuse to leave the train. They're in the last two cars and are shouting at immigration officers to let them carry on their journey.

The officers are unhappy we're filming this. They start flashing torches into our eyes and camera lenses. A few hours pass and finally the officials give up.  Our presence almost certainly means that after a tense stand-off, they decide to withdraw. 

They could physically force people off the train, but that's unlikely while we are filming 鈥� it would look terrible. And so, the train continues with many of the migrants still on board. 

They're still at least 700 miles from the border with the United States.

TREATED LIKE CATTLE

Many of these people left their home countries, often in Latin America, because of extreme poverty and gang violence. The prospect of a Trump victory in November sent them flooding to the border but what they found was a situation more treacherous than they ever imagined.

In the past, reaching Mexico would almost certainly guarantee a route to America, but immigration was a key issue in the US presidential election.

President Biden did not want high numbers at the border.

Under pressure from the current administration, Mexico obstructed the movement of asylum seekers, migrants and refugees. From what we witnessed, migration officials were going to extreme lengths to stop them.

On the side of a railway track a little further north, surrounded by concerned locals, we found a small group who had been kicked off a train.

Vanessa Acevando Diaz was eight months pregnant. Sitting next to her was her partner, Rominger Campo Duran. The couple were from Colombia.

Rominger showed us a nasty cut on his head. He said he was hit with a metal bar by Mexican officers who forced them off the train.

Vanessa, who asked to be called Naomi, said she received five electric shocks with a cattle prod into her pregnant stomach until she got off the train. 

Also on the side of the track was Roxanna Molave and her two young boys, Daniel and Angel Rivas, from Venezuela. Through tears, she said that her husband was beaten unconscious and had disappeared. She assumed he was dead. 

"The migration officers got on [the train]. They started to beat us to make us get off the train but because we had a child with a fever, we couldn't get off quickly.

"My husband ran to the front and when he came back to look for us, they jumped on him and beat him."

With the help of a local charity, Roxanna's husband, Jose Angel Rivas, was reunited with his family a few hours later. He was beaten, bruised and needed help walking but more shocking were the marks cut into his back - the letters 'MX', short for Mexico.

He'd been branded.

Sky News has reached out to Mexico's National Institute of Migration (INM) for comment on our reporting but are yet to receive a response.

Despite the incredible hardships of these journeys 鈥� and the new brutal interventions by the Mexican authorities  鈥� the inexorable move north goes on.

BEWARE THE CARTELS

It is early morning in the city of Torreon and we are at the home of a volunteer who shelters migrants. Before dawn, around 35 people climb into a pick-up truck which drives to a dusty part of town next to the railway line.

They're herded into a courtyard, passing through sheets intended to obscure their presence. Among the migrants gathered are Naomi (Vanessa) and Rominger, who we met on the tracks a few days earlier. 

A train is coming but it is a double-storey one with sealed railway trucks. It's too dangerous to ride, and whistles past the disappointed group.

Half-a-day passes before we get word another train is due. Alongside the migrants, we gather our belongings and prepare for the journey.

A train approaches that it is considered rideable. It doesn't appear to stop, or at least we don't think so. Then suddenly we get word that it has halted a couple of miles outside of town, so the group speeds off to catch it.

This is our chance. We follow the migrants as they climb the metal ladders onto the roof of The Beast.

We sit in the centre of the roof and settle in for another journey northwards. It's early evening as we head into the desert. Passing through towns and villages, people wave at the migrants as we speed along the tracks. 

The train shakes and rattles. The trucks bang into each other as we turn in wide arcs through the countryside. It's beautiful and terrifying at the same time. 

Not only are these migrants risking their lives but there's also the threat they might run into another checkpoint, or worse, one of the many cartels operating here. Stories of robbery, extortion and rape are common.

We're heading to the city of Chihuahua, which can take up to  15 hours depending on the speed of the train. 

In the distance we can see a lightning storm over faraway mountains. Above us, in the clear skies, constellations of stars and the Milky Way. The train starts going faster and the wind forces us to lie flat.

Beside me, Vanessa is struggling to sleep as her unborn baby moves in her belly. Rominger lies beside her under a blanket, trying to keep her warm. Their plan is to keep travelling until they reach the US.

LOOKING AT TEXAS

As dawn breaks, we can see the city of Chihuahua in the distance. The migrants begin to wake and dismount as the train comes to a stop.

Private security guards shout up to us as they walk along the tracks telling everyone it's time to get off. The journey ends here, about 300 miles from the city of Juarez, which borders the US.

About half-a-mile away, a convenience store is surrounded by an unofficial migrant camp of tarpaulin sheets and battered tents.

Among the people outside the corner shop, some of whom have travelled thousands of miles through multiple countries, those last 300 miles to Juarez seem almost too much.

The Texan city of El Paso lies over the Rio Grande river from Juarez, separating the two countries. Many appear to have given up, staring into the distance with exhaustion written across their faces.

FOUR MONTHS LATER

After spending a month documenting stories from the migrant trail, we left Mexico vowing to stay in touch and follow the fate of the people we'd met.

The first sign that things were moving forward for at least one of them, was a text message from an unknown American phone number.

"We are already in Texas," the message read. It was from Vanessa. She and Rominger had crossed the border illegally and handed themselves over to the authorities, not long after we left them.

Vanessa, who uses her first name now, gave birth just a few days after arriving in America. She lives in hot and humid Florida with her baby daughter, Madison.

Born in the US, Madison now has American citizenship. Vanessa is also entitled to stay - at least until her daughter is 18 years old. 鈥淲hen I had my baby, I was treated like royalty," she recalls. "They were so attentive to me and my girl."

Since arriving in the US, Vanessa has split with Rominger. She describes the journey to the border as a "nightmare" but is happy in her new life.

"Coming to the US was a childhood dream," she says. "I got pregnant and said 'this is my moment'. Now, I'm here with my daughter and she is my driving force to continue fighting."

Vanessa鈥檚 is exactly the kind of story that inspires others to head to America. 

The big thing that has changed since we were on the migrant trail, is the election of Donald Trump as the next US president. 

He made it clear while campaigning, and in his comments since, that tackling the immigration crisis will be an issue he addresses from day one of his presidency.

 For the many thousands who have yet to cross into the US 鈥� legally or illegally 鈥� it is now a desperate rush for the border before, in their minds, time runs out.

 Correspondent鈥檚 Note: This is an updated version of an earlier article I wrote about The Beast. After we left Mexico earlier this year, I felt we needed to return and see what happened to the people we met. Our film, The Beast, documents that journey and provides more detail about the difficulties faced by migrants as they attempt to reach the United States.

The Beast is available to watch from 9pm on Sky News on 22 November and on Sky Documentaries / YouTube