Miguel Mestiza could not say goodbye before leaving. He left it all behind: four children, a home in Orange, New Jersey, and 13 years of life in the United States. Mestiza, a 31-year-old house painter, died on April 16 of coronavirus, but it was not until now that the long wait to return to his land has ended. He is one of 245 people who have been repatriated this Saturday from New York in a special flight of the Mexican Army, a balm for hundreds of families on both sides of the border and an escape valve in the midst of the forensic crisis that is hitting the northeastern United States, the region of the world with the most deaths and infections of covid-19. “We are sad because he leaves us, but also happy because I know that returning to Mexico is what he would have wanted,” says Ana María Lorenzo, his partner, excited.
Until this Friday, New York and New Jersey have accumulated almost 575,000 infected people and 47,786 deaths from covid-19, according to the count of the Universidad Johns Hopkins. In New York, which exceeds 400,000 cases, one in three people who died were Latino, according to official data. No other demographic is more affected. Added to the drama of racism and inequalities faced by minorities most affected by the pandemic in the United States, are the difficulties faced by the families of thousands of immigrants to repatriate their bodies to their communities of origin.
The 737 flight of the Mexican Air Force that departed at noon from the Laguardia landing this Saturday night at the Benito Juárez International Airport in Mexico City has been a measure of last resort. Direct flights between New York, where air traffic has plummeted more than 90% compared to last year, and the Mexican capital are suspended. Funeral homes, hospitals and local civil registry offices – all required stops in the bureaucratic labyrinth of funeral procedures – are just beginning to function normally and have collapsed for the last three months due to the high number of deaths and sanitary restrictions during the pandemic. And cremations have been practically the only alternative, in terms of costs, special permits and logistics to carry out the transfer of remains.
“It was spending thousands of dollars and we did not have the money, doing it on our own was almost impossible,” says Lorenzo, who had to do the procedures by email, with financial problems after losing his job in the middle of the pandemic and in mourning over death. of the father of his children. The Mexican consulate in New York, which received the ballot boxes in the second half of June, reports that this first shipment of ballot boxes are for people who died in March, April and May, requests that had lagged for months, when the peak of the A pandemic in that state has claimed up to 33 deaths every hour.
Due to the rush to reach the deadline, Lorenzo no longer knew what color or size his partner’s urn was, the only important thing is that he arrived in Tlatlauquitepec, a small community of 15,000 inhabitants in the northern Sierra of the State of Puebla. , in the center of Mexico. Around four out of every ten ballot boxes on this flight have Puebla as their final destination, from where there are more than a million Mexicans living in New York. “For us it was important that the family had a place to bring him flowers, to mourn him, to visit him,” he explains.
For families divided by the border, it is easier for those who were born in the United States to watch over him in Mexico, rather than for those who were born in Mexico to get papers to bury him in the United States. “It is the hardest trip I have ever made in my life,” admits Jorge Islas, the Mexican consul in New York. “We are talking about people who have not seen their family member since they emigrated and who see them like this again today, we feel that the Mexican State had a duty to make this effort,” says the diplomat, who will accompany the remains and will make a visit to Puebla this Monday.
Despite the efforts of the Mexican government, the mourning of hundreds of families continues to drag on. The family of Alfredo Meneses, a 43-year-old construction worker who died on April 10, will have to wait to be sent to Santiago Momoxpan, a town of 17,000, also in Puebla. Meneses spent almost a month in a morgue before he was cremated and afterwards, an error in the death certificate delayed his repatriation. The wait has already exceeded three months and his relatives are comforted that the delay may become an opportunity for him to be veiled in his town when the pandemic subsides in Mexico. “The situation has improved and a priest is going to give him the blessing this Sunday, it is the first time that the family will be present to say goodbye,” says María del Carmen Meneses, his sister.
The Government of Mexico reports 728 nationals killed by coronavirus in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the region of the United States where there have been more deaths of Mexicans. Some families have decided that they will wait to take the remains of their loved ones by their own means and others hope that a new special flight will support them in the transfer. “At this time we cannot guarantee that there will be other flights,” says Roberto Velasco, director general for North America of the Foreign Ministry, although he does not rule out that other destinations in the United States may also be included.
The consulate has organized a mass this morning in the Cathedral of Saint Patrick, on Fifth Avenue, before the shipment. After repatriation, 245 binational families continue their grief. “It has been very hard, but I know that we will be able to go to Mexico and my children and I will be able to say goodbye,” says Lorenzo from the other end of the phone.
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