Oct 25, 2026 · 1 hr 40 min · 8 segments
5 HORROR STORIES OF MEXICAN MIGRANTS where the American dream turns into a nightmare brings together dark tales about people traveling along lonely routes, backroads, deserts, and unfamiliar towns…
Story 1 To make the situation clear, I want to explain something from the start.
I'm not a criminal.
I'm a welder.
At the time, I was working at an auto repair shop, but I was drowning in debt, and a cousin who lives in Arizona told me that if I could get a cross, he could get me a job at a construction site.
That was why I sold my motorcycle, scraped together what little money I could, and headed north.
I'm not going to explain how I found the coyote or anything related to that, because I don't want to get anyone in trouble.
And to be honest, I think the man who took us ended up worse off than any of us.
I'll call him Fausto.
Fausto was a rough man of about fifty, his skin sunburned and parched like old leather, the kind of man who only speaks when it's absolutely necessary.
We were a small group and that was supposed to be an advantage.
There was me, a young man from Veracruz named Lisandro, who wouldn't stop talking about his pregnant girlfriend, and an older man, Don Orestes, who you could tell from a distance was in no shape to endure the desert.
but whose eyes showed a need that drove him harder than his legs ever could.
And there was Mara, a very quiet young woman, almost standoffish, who barely even told us her name.
The route we would take wasn't the usual one, or at least that was what Fausto explained to us.
He said the border patrol was cracking down too hard at the known crossing points and that we were going to go around through the Algadones Dunes, skirting an area they call the Altar Desert, though without going too far into it, because out there, in his words, you really do die.
The plan was to walk for three nights and hide during the day.
Put that way, sitting in an air-conditioned house, it sounds simple, but the desert isn't a place, it's a living beast breathing down on you.
We started walking on a Tuesday just as the sun began to set, though the heat still clung to the ground like tar.
You don't breathe the air out there, you swallow it.
It comes in hot and dry and in less than ten minutes, your throat is already full of dust.
The first few hours were nothing but fear and adrenaline.
No one spoke for fear of being discovered.
All we could hear was the crunch of boots on the dry ground and Don Orestes' labored breathing.
He had been huffing and puffing since the first kilometer.
The first night passed without any serious problems, aside from the kind of exhaustion that tears your body apart.
Story 1 To make the situation clear, I want to explain something from the start.
I'm not a criminal.
I'm a welder.
At the time, I was working at an auto repair shop, but I was drowning in debt, and a cousin who lives in Arizona told me that if I could get a cross, he could get me a job at a construction site.
That was why I sold my motorcycle, scraped together what little money I could, and headed north.
I'm not going to explain how I found the coyote or anything related to that, because I don't want to get anyone in trouble.
And to be honest, I think the man who took us ended up worse off than any of us.
I'll call him Fausto.
Fausto was a rough man of about fifty, his skin sunburned and parched like old leather, the kind of man who only speaks when it's absolutely necessary.
We were a small group and that was supposed to be an advantage.
There was me, a young man from Veracruz named Lisandro, who wouldn't stop talking about his pregnant girlfriend, and an older man, Don Orestes, who you could tell from a distance was in no shape to endure the desert.
but whose eyes showed a need that drove him harder than his legs ever could.
And there was Mara, a very quiet young woman, almost standoffish, who barely even told us her name.
The route we would take wasn't the usual one, or at least that was what Fausto explained to us.
He said the border patrol was cracking down too hard at the known crossing points and that we were going to go around through the Algadones Dunes, skirting an area they call the Altar Desert, though without going too far into it, because out there, in his words, you really do die.
The plan was to walk for three nights and hide during the day.
Put that way, sitting in an air-conditioned house, it sounds simple, but the desert isn't a place, it's a living beast breathing down on you.
We started walking on a Tuesday just as the sun began to set, though the heat still clung to the ground like tar.
You don't breathe the air out there, you swallow it.
It comes in hot and dry and in less than ten minutes, your throat is already full of dust.
The first few hours were nothing but fear and adrenaline.
No one spoke for fear of being discovered.
All we could hear was the crunch of boots on the dry ground and Don Orestes' labored breathing.
He had been huffing and puffing since the first kilometer.
The first night passed without any serious problems, aside from the kind of exhaustion that tears your body apart.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
