Wilson Reynoso Vega drowned in cold, dark woods in Quebec as he made his way to the border.
Reynoso lived in the Dominican Republic; the 11-year-old girl lived in Philadelphia with her mother. But he spoke of her often and stayed in touch with her through regular video chats. Sometimes he blended her image into the pictures he posted of himself on Facebook, as if the two were already reunited.
“You push people into more and more dangerous crossings, and that’s been the experience in the United States, right? And in Europe,” said Sean Rehaag, who teaches immigration and refugee law at York University in Toronto. “It just leads to loss of life.”While hundreds of migrants die each year in the area of the U.S.-Mexico border, deaths on the U.S.-Canada border remain rare.
Reynoso’s death “serves as a reminder of the danger that people put themselves and others in when they seek to cross the border irregularly,” Canada’s federal immigration department said in a statement. U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Michael McCarthy warned against a “false perception that crossing the northern border is safer than crossing the southern border.”
But he missed his daughter, who spent the first several years of her life in the Dominican Republic before moving with her mother to the United States. His Facebook page is full of pictures of the girl, and they spoke often.Reynoso Vega flew to Toronto on a tourist visa, friends and family members say. He had been rejected for a U.S. tourist visa — the reason is unclear — and hoped a Canadian stamp in his passport would improve his chances of being allowed entry to the United States.
“Every night, I think about that,” Pérez said. “Some people, when they get scared, their legs shake, they cannot walk.” Authorities on both sides of the border launched a search by helicopter and all-terrain vehicle. Reynoso’s body was found on the Canadian side the next day. The cause of death was determined to be drowning.Burzminski, Reynoso’s Toronto friend, identified the body. He said the coroner told him Reynoso had been hypothermic for hours before he died.
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