➡ From Child Welfare Information Gateway
US: Riding ‘the beast’: child migrants reveal full horror of their journeys to America
Guardian – October 05, 2017
To the question about how they travelled here, with a blend of pride and horror, most say: “I came on La Bestia” – which literally means “the beast”, and refers to the freight trains that cross Mexico, on top of which as many as half a million Central American migrants ride annually. There are no passenger services along the routes, so migrants have to ride atop the rail cars or in the recesses between them.
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/oct/05/riding-the-beast-child-migrants-reveal-full-horror-of-their-journeys-to-us